Advice on second bird?

[jakedowl]

Hi guys, so about 3 months ago I bought a 4 month old female budgie, aviary and parent raised, and I tamed her. It was a long process but now she is wonderful she loves scritches and cuddles and hanging out with me. The plan was to always get another bird friend for her eventually, a hand raised one. So recently I got a 6 week old "hand raised" male, I got him checked out by the vet and he passed all tests, so he was introduced to my female, he is 7 weeks old now and definitely NOT hand raised, he was clipped without my knowledge so they could take pics of him on their hand but they left his outer flight feathers intact so you couldn't tell. He does not want to be around people at all and panics and bites when you try to go near him he just can't get away. So basically after this long story, I do have a friend with an aviary who can take him and let him live with his own kind but i'm not sure, do you think it would be okay to tame him and let him live with her or to rehome him and get a truly hand raised bird? I'm just stuck in an awkward situation now.



If it matters they don't share a cage right now, he is in a smaller cage because he truly does drop like a rock from any attempt at flight and she is in a flight cage i was planning on him to go in with her.

[Hezz]

There is no reason why he won’t tame the same as your hen, but I have to say that three months is not a long time in the taming process, so don’t expect the same time frame with taming the new budgie. What you don’t want to be doing though is putting your new bird in with a resident hen. Hens are notoriously territorial over their cages and the best way to go about getting the two together peacefully is to put the resident hen into the smaller cage for a few weeks, new bird in the larger cage and then introduce the hen into the larger cage with the new bird already in residence.

[jakedowl]

Jan 29, 2021 22:04:28 GMT Hezz said:

There is no reason why he won’t tame the same as your hen, but I have to say that three months is not a long time in the taming process, so don’t expect the same time frame with taming the new budgie. What you don’t want to be doing though is putting your new bird in with a resident hen. Hens are notoriously territorial over their cages and the best way to go about getting the two together peacefully is to put the resident hen into the smaller cage for a few weeks, new bird in the larger cage and then introduce the hen into the larger cage with the new bird already in residence.

Yeah I will say that for some reason or another my hen just is a very easy going bird, she has never once bitten me or even tried to, she will self entertain with her toys (more like destroy them) if i put her in her cage and at the same time she’s totally content to hang out with me and cuddle so my standards might be a little too high for the new baby, he is only my second ever budgie i’ve had lovebirds before but they were hand raised. I did have him in the larger cage but it is a very large flight cage and he really struggles to get around it.. I will go out and by some rope perches to bridge the gaps for him maybe.

[Deleted]

My two younger birds, who are best friends, are gradually getting tamer. You'll be fine if you just keep working with him.

It might be worth swapping them around once his flights are grown back in before you put them back in together. Just in case.

At least you have until his moult to work with him separately and teach him that hands can be safe and helpful, and not scary grabby things.

[jakedowl]

Jan 30, 2021 17:40:03 GMT @sillycat84 said:

My two younger birds, who are best friends, are gradually getting tamer. You'll be fine if you just keep working with him.

It might be worth swapping them around once his flights are grown back in before you put them back in together. Just in case.

At least you have until his moult to work with him separately and teach him that hands can be safe and helpful, and not scary grabby things.

Oh yeah i’m keeping them in separate cages until he can fly because he never even got to fledge properly but he still tries when my hen flies and I don’t want him to injure himself. He is in a smaller cage right now, still above the minimum of 18x18x18 but he can at least jump from perch to perch without falling, the flight cage my hen is in is 34 inches long and its just too big for him to make it around.

[Morgan]

It seems like you have a pretty good handle on things - and since he is at least very young (and you were already able to tame your girl, good job!), I think you have pretty good chances of doing the same with him while he is in his own cage. It may be easier if he *could. 5 see or hear another budgie nearby, so he could focus solely on you, but lots of treats and patience should bring him around either way. I hope it all goes well!

*Edit: whoops didn’t catch that typo. Hope it was obvious - *“couldn’t” see or hear other budgies... was what I meant to say