Boris just gets giddy, what next?

[helenmat]

Boris is doing well with Step up training, he will eat a tiny millet berry from my fingers, all inside the cage. He will only do it a couple of times and then he just gets really gidddy and starts jumping about excited. I can't get him to stay on my finger for longer than a couple of seconds without millet. When we walk away from his cage he shouts for us. He is still in the other room away from Buddy. We have had him 2 weeks tomorrow (he is 10 weeks old) and am just wondering about letting him have a fly round this weekend, I just wasn't sure if he is ready yet as he seems a bit skittish but he seems to want to burn off energy. I don't want to end up stressing him out not being able to get him back. Should I just carry on with the step up training for now.

[OP]

LOL, I thought you meant the other Boris until I read the post.

Back to the post, if Boris the budgie can hear Buddy that could be the reason for him jumping about and the calling when you leave him. If you did let him out for a fly around I wouldn't be at all surprised if he tried to find out where this other budgie is.
If it was me I would wait until the quarantine time was up before letting him out, but then that is me. The problem I can see is that if you do let him out and then have difficulty getting him back in his cage you could set his trust in you back quite a bit. If he begins to trust you more fully then you should have less bother getting him back in his cage. That's how I see things.

[Hezz]

If you have somewhere safe to let Boris out for a fly around .... AND .... if you think that it is ants in his pants kicking this off then try giving him time out. Make sure you are not doing anything else for the next hour, and practise your stepping up and down, and into the cage training. When you are trying to work with him, do you close off doors and windows to reduce the amount/volume of calling that one bud will do to another??

[helenmat]

Buddy is very quiet at the moment and hardly calls at all. He has been very subdued since Pickle died which is exactly why Boris is here. Yes we do have the door shut when we practice step up as I am always cautious of new buds escaping. I think we have already drawn the same conclusion though, that he is not quite ready to come out yet as we don't feel that we would control him easily, we are going to give it another week at least and just persist a bit longer with training.

Any tips on how to carry on more successfully with training than what we are doing now?

[Hezz]

No; training takes time. With birds, more so. Think of it this way ... you wouldn't expect a puppy to know what to do without a lot of repetitive work, and to remember without reinforcing the learned behaviours, and this is an animal that wants to please humans. Birds don't have that need; you have to prove yourself to them first before they are going to trust you enough to do what you are wanting them to do. The only thing I would suggest is to practise your training as many times a day as you can for periods of 5-10 minutes each. Make it too long and you will both get bored and frustrated. Remember to always finish on a positive note.

[helenmat]

Had a really good session last night, he was very settled and I went to do some step up with him and putting him down on the opposite perch, he did all that so I gave him a millet berry as a reward and he sat on my hand to eat it out of my fingers, when he had finished he carried on sitting there. I think he must have been a bit sleepy! It was lovely though, I had to put him back on the perch in the end as he wouldn't get off! Its as though he heard me talking about him!

[Hezz]

Sounds like he was really for bed! It can be a really good time to work with them .... or not! Sometimes they can just be too tired, and it all goes to pot.