Training without millet?

[sciencefanatic]

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Hey guys, so I inherited a budgie from my sister who couldn't take care of him anymore. She gave him to me because I love animals and am experienced with reptiles (yeah, I know, doesn't translate amazingly, but actually, the herbivorous part of food isn't too different and at least I know animals in general.)

Anyways, the problem:
My sister kinda over-loved him incorrectly and he was super skiddish and hated people in general when I first got him. I've been using similar tactics as I would on a lizard, slowly getting him used to me, so he is fine with me being around now (after a few months of work)

--->I've gotten to the point where I think I can try to train him, but I've run into an issue-- he doesn't like millet spray. It sounds ridiculous, but I can leave a stick in his cage and he won't touch it. He knows what it is, he's tried it out of curiosity a couple of times, but he just doesn't seem to care for it.

Thus, I'm stuck on how to train him, this is what everything I can find tells me to do, train with millet. I've tried to find another food to replace it, and there are some things he really likes, but nothing he enjoys enough to get him to eat out of my hand.

The closest I've found is his love of bells. He will play with them all day long (he mimics them too) and pay no attention to anything else or any other toy. I've attempted to use bells to train him and actually gotten more success with that than anything else I've tried. With the bells, I've gotten him to like me (or at least associate me with good things) but I'm stumped on how I could teach him to do something like stand on my finger with a bell. 

Does anyone have any advice? Is it possible to somehow train him better with bells or something else? I really want to interact with him and love him, but he doesn't understand anything and still jumps away if I move to quickly or look at him wrong. 

While I'm here, I may as well ask: he also seems to be really bad at flying (like he flies strait into every wall and ceiling and can't get back to his cage), and it makes me scared to take him out, is there anything I can do about that? I've thought about trying to clip his wings but I don't think I feel comfortable doing it myself and I don't live anywhere near somewhere that could do it for me. Is there something I can do about that? How can I make it safe for him to leave his cage? I hate keeping him cooped up but I fear for his safely.

If you read the whole thing, thank you. Any general advice would also be appreciated. Thank you guys so much in advance!

[ladybird]

Hi there, I am sure someone with more experience will be along to help you soon..... But can I ask, have you tried red millet spray? Mosh budgies can’t resist it.
Also have you tried letting him out in a small room, example a bathroom where he can’t hurt himself ( make sure you cover the mirror)...As you know it takes a lot of patience to tame a budgie, but I am sure you will get there.....Good Luck....

[sciencefanatic]

Dec 30, 2019 9:47:17 GMT ladybird said:

have you tried red millet spray? Mosh budgies can’t resist it.
Also have you tried letting him out in a small room, example a bathroom where he can’t hurt himself ( make sure you cover the mirror)...As you know it takes a lot of patience to tame a budgie, but I am sure you will get there.....Good Luck....

I haven't tried red millet, I'll see if I can get some and try it. I have tried a bathroom, but it's problematic because my sister would take him out in bathrooms so he associates them with her and starts panicking. I'm not sure I have another room that would work the same way, but I'll try some other rooms and see if anything works.

How long would you expect taming him to take given his background? I'm not in any huge rush of anything, but a general idea might be nice.

[Hezz]

There is no general time frame for taming and training any bird. They all come with their own set of quirks and all you can do is be patient and lower your expectations to nil. Expect the worst (getting nowhere) and hope for the best ( a feathered friend). Your relationship with him will evolve over time, sometimes so slowly that you don't realise you have moved on until you look back and remember how things used to be. The bird must be allowed to move to respond at his own pace, allowing trust to build up gradually. Some budgies are naturally skittish and never really become a tame people's bird.

A small room works best as a training room and to have him out for a fly as it generally doesn't give them the space to get too much speed up. Young birds are usually useless in the beginning at navigating but that comes with a little experience. Make sure there are places in the room for him to perch on, instead of flying around in panic not being able to find a safe perch. Having curtains etc over windows will not only let him see the limits of the room but also soften any bumping into that might happen.

For training, if millet or other foods don't work (what about some of his seed mix in the palm of your hand?) and the bell does, why not just use the bell?

[ladybird]

I don’t think you should clip his wings, he would never fly then and you want him to dont you.....Hezz??

[sciencefanatic]

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to clip his wings, I've just got to help him with his flying. For reference, he really isn't super young (he's at least a year and a half old) he just never really got out of the cage before I got him.

I have tried just his food, but he won't eat anything out of my hand. The problem with using the bell for hand training is I can use it to (sometimes) get on my finger, but the second I move he just gets off my hand to go back to the bell. Maybe I'll try holding the bell in my other hand and moving it with him?

[ladybird]

I think maybe you are trying to rush him too much. Would you try going back to the beginning? Like Hezz said it all about patience and lots of it. Why not try a week of just sitting by his cage and just talking softly to him, don’t look him in the eye. You need to gain his trust. Then you could move on to just putting your hand gently inside his cage but not trying to touch him.........I am no expert but I think this is going to be the only way you are going to win his trust......he needs you, but it’s going to take time
My friend was given a budgie and it was five years old and had never been tamed, but with lots and lots of patience.......she now has a lovely tame little friend....

[sciencefanatic]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't really think I've been rushing him. His body language seems to indicate he enjoys my presence, and he will come and greet me any time I come near him. I also don't push myself on him, I put my hand in the cage and let him come to me if he wants to. Perhaps I've been unclear on the timeline too... I've been working with him for about 10 months already to get him to this point.

[ladybird]

Sorry I didn’t read your post correctly. I would definitely see if you can get some red millet ( it is much sweeter than the yellow). Keep going with the hand training. How often do you let him out? If you could get him to the point where you could get him out of the cage on your finger, you could then put him on top of his cage ( maybe put his bells there)....then he has somwhere to aim for when he flies..... It’s all little steps especially with an older bird.....sounds like you are doing everything right, just going to take time.

[Hezz]

If he has never been let out to fly before then his control and ability is definitely going to be affected, possibly long term. Sometimes birds who haven't been given the chance to build up their wing and chest muscles from the time they should be flying, never do. It is as though their joints and muscles atrophy. Others will develop the ability to differing extents given the chance to practise on a regular basis.

[sciencefanatic]

I don't think my sister let him out much (if at all) but I'm not really sure. Since I got him, I've let him out a few times but he really scares me and I want to make sure he is safe. How much do I actually need to worry about him running into stuff? I've had one bad experience with an old let and it has made me very weary, but I do recognize there were a lot of other factors in that. He does have a pretty big cage he can fly in some though, so hopefully that's helped?

[ladybird]

I don’t think we know your budgies name do we? Can you put a picture of him and his cage?

[Hezz]

Jan 1, 2020 5:57:54 GMT sciencefanatic said:

I don't think my sister let him out much (if at all) but I'm not really sure. Since I got him, I've let him out a few times but he really scares me and I want to make sure he is safe. How much do I actually need to worry about him running into stuff? I've had one bad experience with an old let and it has made me very weary, but I do recognize there were a lot of other factors in that. He does have a pretty big cage he can fly in some though, so hopefully that's helped?

That really depends on how he is flying. If he is flying full speed, or mad, panic flying into a wall, then yes, he can certainly do himself a lot of damage, even kill himself. This is why a small space is better - so he doesn't have the chance to get up to those dangerous speeds. On the other hand, if he is flying in a fluttering kind of way, more like a butterfly for instance, then he isn't going to be going at speed enough to do damage.

A lot depends on making the room you use as safe for him as possible - pulling curtains over windows etc, even propping them away from the windows so that if he does run into the curtain there is a buffer before he hits something hard. It doesn't usually take them long to work out the dimensions of the room and be able to navigate around it safely, but if he isn't a competent flier, that may take a while longer.