Budgies don't like millet for training/taming

[newbudgie]

Hi everyone! I am new to this forum & because I love my budgies so much, this is the first time I'm ever making a forum post in my life, lol. I adopted two budgies who are very close to each other & have laid eggs once. They came from a loud family whose kids have grabbed at them when the budgies were younger. So, I understand the trauma or fear that my budgies have right now. 

I want to tame them & train them, but they seem to have absolutely no care for millet. I left the millet in their cage for a week and they didn't even touch it, so I'm assuming they don't care for it? I bought different treat sticks to try that because they look like their seeds and I stick my hand in the cage for 20-40mintues almost every day with the treat & they just don't seem interested. I've tried fruits, veggies...I think they like spinach? Can't tell if they really eat it though. I break it apart and mix it into their seeds. I've also tried eating it in front of them so that they know it's not poison each time.

It's been 10 days since I brought them home. On the 7th day, I opened their cage because I saw a youtube video that said they should leave their cage and spend time around you, but my budgies did not respond to that well at all. They were terrible at flying and hurt themselves by flying into the walls, tables, and chairs. They also went into weird hallways very far from their cage. I brought the cage to them several hours after their bed time, and they showed no interest in going back into their cage so I had to grab them eventually with gloves on  

Please let me know if you guys know what else I can try to condition them with since they seem to have no interest in treats?

I am working on my patience btw! I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing or if I need to try different treats/conditioning methods.


Thanks so much

[Hezz]

I presume you mean that they have shown no interest in a millet spray?? Most budgie seed mixes are made up of a number of different types of millet so I doubt that your birds don't like it, but rather that they don't recognise a millet spray as an edible source of anything, if they have not been offered it in the past. Leave it in the cage until you notice they have explored it. That may take a while since everything around them is new at the moment.

It sounds as though these birds are not youngsters, having already laid eggs once before, and had a traumatic life. I wouldn't be going in too hard with the training but leave them to learn their new environment. It has only been ten days; not time enough for them to understand that this is their new life, and it is going to take a long time for them to learn to trust the new humans in their lives.

Let them get used to your presence. Be around their cage, talk to them, sing if you want, reading goes down well, but most of all don't stare at them. Try not to look at them with both eyes. Turn your head, close one eye, wink and blink at them, all designed to give them a better sense of security. We are predators, they are a prey animal. Watching them with both eyes, that predator stare to them means that you are sizing them up for a feed. Once they are comfortable in your presence then you may start to get somewhere with interacting with them. Before that all you will do is reinforce their feeling that you aren't to be trusted. You really are going to need a lot of patience, and don't be too pushy or you will only set yourself back in any trust they may have started to develop.

If you want to let them out for exercise, and you should, even if the first time didn't go quite to plan (because this could be a long drawn-out process) ... take their cage (and yourself) into a small room (bedroom, bathroom) and close the door. Cover windows and mirrors, if in the bathroom, lid down of the toilet, no standing water etc. It is possible that they will still panic in the beginning but a small space can contain that panic to a certain degree and save them from going into other areas that you maybe haven't budgie-proofed.