Post by purps on May 29, 2017 2:07:28 GMT
Hi all!
I had budgies as a kid, but never as an adult, so in practical terms I'm a total rookie. I found this guy sitting on fence in a public park (we don't have a wild parakeet population) a week ago and I was worried that something would happen to him if I left him there - he let me pick him up and put him in a bucket, so I took him home. (After interacting with him once he'd slept and had some food - he was definitely super super tired and therefore much more docile than he has been since!). I've put up signs/craigslist ads/listserv postings, and no one's contacted me about him. He showed up the day the local college students moved out of their dorms, so I think somebody with more goodwill than sense thought they could just let him go? I've got a smallish cage (I need a bigger one if he's staying), food, and toys from Petsmart.
Anyway, I've had him since last Thursday (5/18), and since it seems like he's staying I'm trying to figure out how to get him to interact with me so that he can get out of the cage for exercise, be less fearful, etc. I'm hoping some kind person can help me make sense of all of this, I know these are all questions that have been asked and answered before but there's so much information on this forum that I'm not sure how to start.
Things he likes and dislikes so far:
Likes:
- he likes standard, grocery-store pet bird mix well enough that he'll sometimes put one foot on my hand to eat it when I've had him loose or put my hand in the cage
- he will also eat it from between my fingers through the bar of the cage, though now he's started biting me when the seeds run out
- he likes gospel music, the sound of the kitchen faucet, and listening to parakeet sounds on Youtube
- he liked his mirror so much that I actually took it out, because he'd stopped hopping around, flapping, or responding to other sounds and was just sort of pressing his face into the mirror all day, for literally hours. Since I took it out he's been more interactive but also antsier.
Dislikes:
- he will JUST ABOUT concede to eat from a millet spray if I've just been feeding him birdseed through the bars right beside it. He does not otherwise want anything to do with the millet spray I put in there.
- he hates all other food. He took one bite of greens once, made a face, and has never done it again. He will not eat lettuce, carrots, blueberries, or strawberries.
- there's a toy thing hanging from his cage and he will not interact with it at all (worrisome, as it has mineral chews)
- he drinks from his water (I got one of those clip-on water dispensing beakers) and puts his feet in it and throws it around his cage, but he won't get in a bath on the floor of his cage.
- he will absolutely not come out of his cage on his own. If I approach him with hand or finger he sort of stabs his beak at me. Which makes sense! He's been through a lot.
He's very _active_ - he clambers around the cage, exercises his wings/flaps, screams when he's trying to take a nap and I have the tv on, yells when I'm not paying attention to him (he likes to yell until I come back into the room), sings to me, the television, youtube, and the birds outside. I think he's _okay_, just really traumatized by having been put outside and then being grabbed by a stranger and put in a bucket and driven around and then put in a new place.
Specific questions:
- Is it really bad form/stressful to move his entire cage around? Should I make a point of never, ever moving it? (It's a friend's cockatiel's travel cage, so it's small/light). Right now I've been moving it from the top of the bookshelf to the tabletop, playing bird sounds on youtube for a while to calm him down, and then doing the just-leave-my-hand-sitting-in-his-cage-full-of-food thing at the table. He does seem to calm down eventually - he will get on my hand - but I just realized that I'm probably also stressing him out hugely by moving the cage at all.
- Right now when I'm feeding him seeds through the cage bars and he chomps my finger I say "no" in an even tone and take my hand/the seeds away and go sit down and ignore him for a little bit. This seems like about what people say to do? But he's definitely still chomping on my fingers as soon as the seeds run out - he's very good at delicately picking them out of my fingers right until they get hard to get to and he wants more snacks, and then CHOMP. I guess I'm assuming he eventually will learn that "no" is also a sound that goes with treats stopping? Do birds learn that kind of thing? Should I say nothing?
- What can I do to get him to interact with toys and new foods? All the "so your parakeet is stressed out" tips that I find online are assuming a less fearful bird who's willing to touch new objects and needs toys like toilet paper tubes to shred. But he''s really fearful of new objects. He even jumps backwards if he eats from the millet spray and that causes the end of it to move. And all the parakeet hand-training tips I find assume that he'll eat treats, but he's either scared of or indifferent to everything except really basic birdseed.
I imagine a lot of this is being patient and giving him time to adjust, but are there other things to be aware of that I can be doing or not doing? Thank you for any thoughts.
I had budgies as a kid, but never as an adult, so in practical terms I'm a total rookie. I found this guy sitting on fence in a public park (we don't have a wild parakeet population) a week ago and I was worried that something would happen to him if I left him there - he let me pick him up and put him in a bucket, so I took him home. (After interacting with him once he'd slept and had some food - he was definitely super super tired and therefore much more docile than he has been since!). I've put up signs/craigslist ads/listserv postings, and no one's contacted me about him. He showed up the day the local college students moved out of their dorms, so I think somebody with more goodwill than sense thought they could just let him go? I've got a smallish cage (I need a bigger one if he's staying), food, and toys from Petsmart.
Anyway, I've had him since last Thursday (5/18), and since it seems like he's staying I'm trying to figure out how to get him to interact with me so that he can get out of the cage for exercise, be less fearful, etc. I'm hoping some kind person can help me make sense of all of this, I know these are all questions that have been asked and answered before but there's so much information on this forum that I'm not sure how to start.
Things he likes and dislikes so far:
Likes:
- he likes standard, grocery-store pet bird mix well enough that he'll sometimes put one foot on my hand to eat it when I've had him loose or put my hand in the cage
- he will also eat it from between my fingers through the bar of the cage, though now he's started biting me when the seeds run out
- he likes gospel music, the sound of the kitchen faucet, and listening to parakeet sounds on Youtube
- he liked his mirror so much that I actually took it out, because he'd stopped hopping around, flapping, or responding to other sounds and was just sort of pressing his face into the mirror all day, for literally hours. Since I took it out he's been more interactive but also antsier.
Dislikes:
- he will JUST ABOUT concede to eat from a millet spray if I've just been feeding him birdseed through the bars right beside it. He does not otherwise want anything to do with the millet spray I put in there.
- he hates all other food. He took one bite of greens once, made a face, and has never done it again. He will not eat lettuce, carrots, blueberries, or strawberries.
- there's a toy thing hanging from his cage and he will not interact with it at all (worrisome, as it has mineral chews)
- he drinks from his water (I got one of those clip-on water dispensing beakers) and puts his feet in it and throws it around his cage, but he won't get in a bath on the floor of his cage.
- he will absolutely not come out of his cage on his own. If I approach him with hand or finger he sort of stabs his beak at me. Which makes sense! He's been through a lot.
He's very _active_ - he clambers around the cage, exercises his wings/flaps, screams when he's trying to take a nap and I have the tv on, yells when I'm not paying attention to him (he likes to yell until I come back into the room), sings to me, the television, youtube, and the birds outside. I think he's _okay_, just really traumatized by having been put outside and then being grabbed by a stranger and put in a bucket and driven around and then put in a new place.
Specific questions:
- Is it really bad form/stressful to move his entire cage around? Should I make a point of never, ever moving it? (It's a friend's cockatiel's travel cage, so it's small/light). Right now I've been moving it from the top of the bookshelf to the tabletop, playing bird sounds on youtube for a while to calm him down, and then doing the just-leave-my-hand-sitting-in-his-cage-full-of-food thing at the table. He does seem to calm down eventually - he will get on my hand - but I just realized that I'm probably also stressing him out hugely by moving the cage at all.
- Right now when I'm feeding him seeds through the cage bars and he chomps my finger I say "no" in an even tone and take my hand/the seeds away and go sit down and ignore him for a little bit. This seems like about what people say to do? But he's definitely still chomping on my fingers as soon as the seeds run out - he's very good at delicately picking them out of my fingers right until they get hard to get to and he wants more snacks, and then CHOMP. I guess I'm assuming he eventually will learn that "no" is also a sound that goes with treats stopping? Do birds learn that kind of thing? Should I say nothing?
- What can I do to get him to interact with toys and new foods? All the "so your parakeet is stressed out" tips that I find online are assuming a less fearful bird who's willing to touch new objects and needs toys like toilet paper tubes to shred. But he''s really fearful of new objects. He even jumps backwards if he eats from the millet spray and that causes the end of it to move. And all the parakeet hand-training tips I find assume that he'll eat treats, but he's either scared of or indifferent to everything except really basic birdseed.
I imagine a lot of this is being patient and giving him time to adjust, but are there other things to be aware of that I can be doing or not doing? Thank you for any thoughts.
You have had this one for 10 days or so, so .... I think also you might have a hen, but a clear shot without the cage bars would be helpful .... she will be starting to settle down into her new home, and if you intend to move her about, maybe out into so sun at times, then keep doing what you are doing. She will soon learn that having the cage move is not a reason to panic.
