staying on finger

[thornydevil]

hello all,
my birds will not stay on my finger or sometimes even go on my finger without millet. they have a mineral block next to their main perch and my more shy bird will step onto the mineral block so i cannot get her when i try to offer her my finger. when i am holding millet, they will both step up fine. also i would appreciate tips about how to take them out for the first time. i have had them for two weeks. they will not stay on my finger for a long time at all and are scared of my hand unless i am holding millet.

side note how can i pet them i am scared to get bit also how can i get them to talk and fly over to me and land on me

[blue48]

Very early days thornydevil. You must have patience and allow your budgies to develop trust and confidence in you at their own pace. Taking things slowly will pay off in the long run.

If you try to rush things you will just frighten them. They are tiny birds and you are a big scary human. Just sit by their cage, talk to them, sing to them and be happy that after just two weeks they will take millet from your hands. Continue to do that until they cease to see your hands as threatening.

When you talk about taking them out I'd give some thought to how you are going to get them back in. They are likely to panic, flutter around wildly and then land on the highest thing in the room. In my case it was the curtain rail. A long dowel or perch may come in handy as they will step on this more readily than your hand when you are trying to get them back in the cage. If you have to grab them, that's going to scare them and put all the training you've done back.

I allowed my boy to come out at his own pace. You could try a perch and some millet just outside the door so they can come out but still feel safe. But please don't be too impatient.

Many budgies just don't like being petted. I can give mine a little head scratch only on his terms.

[Hezz]

Budgies are not a pet to be petted. If that is what you are after, get a dog or a cat. Birds are more like a companion than a pet. Also two weeks is NOTHING time-wise when it comes to gaining trust from your budgies. This is a long-term commitment, not something you can snap together in a couple of weeks. Have a bit of patience, take your time, watch how the birds are reacting to you, learn to read their body language. You have such a long way to go and any rushing on your part will only set you back.

Start getting them to step up and down inside their cage. Once they are doing this repetitively and on command, take the cage into a small room - bedroom, bathroom - and work through the same drills both inside and out of the cage. Leave yourself heaps of time to get them back into the cage when you want to finish the session. Best to keep these short and make sure you end on a positive note so if they both step up onto a perch and be transported back into the cage in the first ten minutes, stop there and come back to it tomorrow.

Make sure you go around any room you intend to have them out in and budgie-proof it. Make sure there are no gaps between wall and furniture, cover glass so that they don't think they can fly through and potentially hurt themselves, and make sure there are obvious perching places around the room.

[thornydevil]

thank you all very much, my sister had budgies previously and it barely took her any time to tame them so i thought i might be doing something wrong. i sit and read a chapter of the hunger games to them every day and they chirp and mumble as i read. i love them very much and i will take all of your advice. how should i go about closing gaps between wall and furniture if the furniture is too large to move? my wall is strangely shaped and it leaves a corner (about half a meter square) between my bed, dresser, and wall. should i just stuff a pillow or something on the top so they cannot get stuck?

[birdguhl]

I have budgie-proofed my living room by putting stiff card on the tops of furniture so there is no gap between furniture and wall that they could fall down. Because I have Charlie who can't fly now, I also make sure that there is nothing (e,g. plastic box) with smooth sides that he could end up in and not be able to climb out of. He's ok with the bin...

[tweetiepiesmom]

Try not to set expectations for your budgies based on your sister's budgies or budgies you might have had in the past. Each has its own personality and will interact with you based upon that. My sister had the sweetest tamest budgie in the world. He would sit on your finger as long as you held him. If you put a finger near him, he'd run over, bend his head down and rub his head feathers on your finger softly chirping until you moved your finger away. I wanted a budgie like that! Neither of my two guys are like that but we are all one happy family and they do other things that make me smile.

[Hezz]

Jul 12, 2020 22:37:12 GMT thornydevil said:

thank you all very much, my sister had budgies previously and it barely took her any time to tame them so i thought i might be doing something wrong. i sit and read a chapter of the hunger games to them every day and they chirp and mumble as i read. i love them very much and i will take all of your advice. how should i go about closing gaps between wall and furniture if the furniture is too large to move? my wall is strangely shaped and it leaves a corner (about half a meter square) between my bed, dresser, and wall. should i just stuff a pillow or something on the top so they cannot get stuck?

This is a big enough gap for you to easily be able to get them out, even big enough for them to be able to get themselves out. The spaces that are dangerous are small gaps of a few centimetres at the top with nowhere for the birds to be able to come out from underneath if they fall/fly down such a gap. These small gaps can be filled with a pillow, cushions etc, for sure. Furniture that is off the floor a little is fine, as long as they can find their way out. Teaching them to step onto a perch outstretched from your hand can be a life-saver in the case of a bud caught in an inaccessible place.