Can my budgie forgive me?

[lemonyhannah]

Does anyone have experience of success with traumatised birds? I rescued a pair of budgies recently and because one was sick I had to chase/ catch her daily to give medication. It was clearly really stressful for her, but I reasoned she needed antibiotics and pain relief more than a human friend at the time. I’m trying to tame the birds now and she’s willing to come close to my hand if I hold millet, but whenever her beak reaches out and she ‘tastes’ me (she would bite me when I caught her, so I think she’s recognising me), she gets really scared and runs away. After this, she won’t come near me for the rest of the day. This has been going on, with no change, for about 6 weeks. I think she’s ready to move onto sitting on a finger, just not mine.
I want to be able to let the budgies out of their cage to have a proper fly around but I don’t want to have to chase them back in as I’m told it’ll reinforce their fear of me.
Is it worth continuing? I’m considering letting these two go to an aviary or sanctuary - somewhere they can be away from humans - and starting over with a pair of birds whose first experience of me and my home wasn’t so unpleasant. I know the disruption wouldn’t be great and I’ve seen a lot of advice about being patient and persevering, but I’m starting to think in this case I’m just torturing them.
The other male bird, whose health is fine, is very watchful of the female and won’t approach me until she does, and runs away when she does, so if she’s not okay with me, he never will be.

[Hezz]

You mentioned patience and perseverance; six weeks really is not a long time. Would you give up on a puppy after that amount of time, if it didn't learn to sit and stay? Surely not. Also it is not about forgiveness. It is about learning to trust the predator human. There is a lot of instinct to flee to be overcome there.

How much time do you put into getting her to trust you on a daily basis? Interact with her as many times a day as you can for 10-15 min periods each time. Also where in the house are they? Have them where you spend the most time so they get used to your general comings and goings, and talk to them all the time.

Another way to approach this which may work is to have your piece of millet on the end of a perch, tie it on however you want, and get her eating the millet off the end of the perch. As that becomes more comfortable for her, shorten the distance between the millet and your hand by having your hand further up the perch closer to the millet. Do this bit by bit, don't rush it.