Taming a Rescue Budgie

[BirdLady]

I recently adopted a frightened little budgie from a shelter where the conditions were quite stressful and God knows where he was or what he experienced prior to arriving there. I have one tame budgie already but will do a 30 day quarantine before putting the boys together. I feel that taking the new bird to the avian vet would be too much stress for him right now so I want to let him settle in a bit first.

Have people had positive experiences taming and integrating traumatized shelter budgies? I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the little one’s fear and hoping to hear some positive stories to encourage me on the journey!

[Hezz]

Any decent shelter should have given the bird a full vet check anyway - you shouldn’t be the one required to do so. I have a “rescued from predator birds” budgie who over twelve months later is still very wary of me but he is absolutely one of the budgie flock. I would suggest that you simply allow this little bird to become friends with your other budgie when quarantine is over and limit your expectations towards his acceptance of you. They are all so different, and with lots of time and interaction I’m sure your relationship will grow.

[Marianne Marlow]

I'm not sure I knew this Hezz, or I could have forgotten. Which one of your birds was rescued from a predator?

[Ira]

I've had Pippin for a little over two years now. I don't exactly know what life was like for him before he came to me but he belonged to an elderly lady who passed away. He came in a tiny cage with sandpaper covered perches, and the first time I picked him up to transfer him to a better cage for his quarantine he bit me as if thought he was about to die.

He was terrified. If I entered the room he would move as far away from me in the cage as he could. I put millet on the outside of the door and he would wander out for that. He got decent at coming out and going back in by himself. It was hard to even offer him a sprig of millet on the end of a stick, let alone from my hand.

He got a lot better once he was with my other budgies, as he would join them in coming to me for millet. I eventually managed to get him to step onto my finger by lying my finger along the perch and luring him with the food.

Pippin's gained a lot of confidence over time, just through slowly working with us, but he is still one of the more wary birds. At the moment he's learned that hands aren't so bad because he's mangled his flight feathers and keeps ending up on the floor and needing rescuing, but unlike several of the others it's nearly always a case of offering him a treat to request a step up the rest of the time. So I'd probably class him as semi-tame. He's happy though.

[Marianne Marlow]

Poor Pippin Ira, makes you wonder what he has been through.

Penny also bites me as if she thinks I am going to murder her, even though I have shown her nothing but kindness.

She had an awful first 5 years to her life though, just being kept for breeding and having all chicks taken away to be hand fed and sold as "hand tame babies".

Then sold for £10 on gumtree when she wasn't any more use.

[Hezz]

May 14, 2023 9:42:45 GMT Marianne Marlow said:

I'm not sure I knew this Hezz, or I could have forgotten. Which one of your birds was rescued from a predator?

Bunji was found by someone else outside being chased around by butcherbirds. They are real predators of our little birds. The lady who found and rescued him said he was so exhausted he could barely hold his head up once she had him safe inside. No one came forward to claim him and she couldn’t keep him so he came to me.

[Marianne Marlow]

Oh yes, that rings a bell.

So glad he was rescued.