Stubborn budgie!

[Kaylajess]

I got my first budgie a couple of days ago. He is about 8 weeks old and has been handled a lot as a baby. I would love to train him to be able to sit on my finger and shoulder. I am not getting anywhere with his training tho. I can put my hand in his cage and he just sits there calmly. Moving on from this I have been using a perch to gently push on his belly to get him to step up but he normally just walks backwards or jumps over it. He has a couple of time put one foot on it but that's as far as it goes. I've tried just using my finger but he is not a fan. If you have any tips or trick I can try I'm willing to give it a shot. I want nothing more than for him to be able to hang out with me without just flying off. Thanks so much

[liz]

Welcome to the forum and thank you for posting so soon. Your Budgie is a little baby not ready to be trained. He is equivalent to a crawling human baby. Though he can walk or fly he doesn't know much else than that he is now in a strange world and you are a strange giant that might want to eat him. He still has his built in instincts even though he will soon depend on you like a parent.

If he is in a small cage put him up at your eye level. If he is in a large cage give him a high perch. Instinct is to go high for safety. He is afraid of hands because hands can hurt little birds. He is not afraid of your face. I have rescued cockatiels that I cannot touch but they will come to me face to face and tell me their "tweeter secrets". These birds have learned to trust me as they will walk on me or walk over the back of my hands to see what I am doing.

The biggest thing is to give your Budgie respect and a safe secure area where he can watch you and listen to you especially when you are not paying attention to him. Spend a lot of time near him. Talk, sing or read to him so he gets used to your voice and he is able to get a good look at you when you are not paying attention to him.

A bird that cannot fly is fearful. Let it fly for exercise and to give it the confidence that if it has to it can get away from danger (you). Parrot proof one room so you can open the door. The first thing he will do is climb to the top of the cage. Being out and on top gives him the feeling that you trust him and he is safe up high. Don't worry if he flies. He needs to fly for his health and confidence.

If after a few hours he does not go back to his cage you can wait until he goes to ground and scoop him up. Never go from above to pick up the bird. Preditors come from above and he will freak.

My specialty is the emotional contact with the bird as I would care for a scared baby. Wolf, Pajarita and many others have more care knowledge than I. I am still learning from them. They will post soon.

Keep in touch and let us know your progress. Don't be afraid to ask a dumb question. I have already asked most of the dumb questions and received excellent answers.

[Kaylajess]

Thanks so much for your reply. He has a big cage that is in our lounge room so when we are home he is always see and hear us. Interesting that you mentioned he would like to be high as most of the time he is on the floor. He does climb around and walk along his perches but spends 90% on the floor of his cage. He comes out for a fly for 2/3 hrs a day.

[Wolf]

Hi, welcome to the forum.
Stop what you are doing right away as you are scaring the bird. A scared bird does two things, it will try to move away or it will freeze. You do need to interact with your budgie, but you need to remain outside of its cage while you do this for now so that your little friend can relax and get over his fear. A lone parrot in a strange new place is terrified as they depend on their flock for their sense of safety and the smaller ones need their flock even more than the larger ones, At 8 weeks of age, your bird is younger than what I am accustomed to working with, but I suspect that he still needs to be given soft foods at least twice a day in addition to whatever you are feeding him. Pajarita know more on this than I do. This is the best time for you to teach your bird what to eat as it can't live on seeds alone and remain healthy, I am assuming that this is what you are feeding him as this is what most people who are new to birds are told to feed them or pellets which in my opinion can be worse, but that is another story. As part of your interactions with your bird sit down with him in front of his cage and nibble on some vegetables such as romaine lettuce, not iceburg or head lettuce that comes as a round ball or perhaps some thin carrot sticks, just about any raw vegetable will do, except for avocado which is toxic to them. And when he starts getting interested in what you are eating give him a small piece to eat if he will. He may or may not eat it at first but eventually he will, vegetables are a good part of their diet and they need them just like you do every day. Don't forget to talk and sing to him while you do this and make a big deal about how good these vegetables are. you have taken on the role of his parent and you need to show him what to eat and he first learns by watching you and then by trying to do what you do.
I would do his cage cleaning when you let him out to fly around so that you don't scare him while you clean it. and then for the rest of your interaction for now just talk and sing to him and offer a little sprig type millet as a treat through the cage bars. We can move on to the next step once he starts coming over to you and taking the millet from you calmly. When he starts coming over towards you while in his cage when you come in to hang out with him then it will be time to open the door of his cage with you in front of it talking to him and again offering a little millet once in a while and then offering him you finger at the door of his cage not inside of it and no poking him in the belly to force him to step up. Let him do this on his own it will be well worth the wait as he will be showing you that he is trusting you to be nice and not hurt him. There is little or nothing that you can do with a bird until you win its trust, but you can have a great relationship and do a lot of things together once he trusts you.
One more thing that I believe will help you is that I feed my budgies in a small plate or saucer that is about 6 inches across and put their food in it on the bottom of their cage where they won't poop on it. I do this because budgies in the wild eat on the ground, they are ground foragers and this is more natural for them. Also provide a wide shallow dish of room temperature water for bathing for your friend.

[Pajarita]

Yep, what Wolf said. Budgies are not big on fruit but they do like their veggies as long as they are soft and in small pieces so cook him some whole grains and mix them with chopped broccoli, diced carrots, corn and peas and you'll see that he will eat them. One more thing, give him leafy greens dripping wet (and I do mean literally dripping water) and put a leaf on the bottom of the cage (they like to 'bathe' in it by rubbing their bodies on it -they come from arid regions and although they live next to the rivers, they can't really bathe in a river -too deep- so this is their solution for keeping clean ) and another one high up (maybe stuck between two bars or even hanging from the top as long as it hangs low enough for him to reach it from a perch).

[Kaylajess]

Thanks guys for you help! This whole bird thing is so new to me! Would you guys have any ideas of when I can expect him to be spending most of his time on a perch? As I said before he spend prob about 90% of his time on the floor. He is a good little climber and gets around to all corners of his cage but hardly spends any time on his perches.

[liz]

Try changing his perch to a natural tree branch or untreated wood. That way you can make it bigger than a usual perch and easier to stand on as well as chew.

Most floor walkers don't fly. If you watch the videos on youtube, the floor walkers have trimmed wings. Rambo, who I call the pedestrian, for some reason did not grow flight feathers. He did grow them after his last molt but does not have the muscle to depend on them from lack of exersize. I have been working with him like aiming him to the sofa and giving the command "fly". He likes that because he doesn't get hurt but he still does not do it on his own. He only tries to fly on his own when he jumps off the top of his cage. He doesn't keep altitude and finds anything soft before the crash. It is good that I have interspecies friendship in my home. He has even landed on the cat. When he lands on an animal they freeze until he gets off.

[Wolf]

There is a lot that we don't know about your budgie that would help us to explain his behaviors better. Given what I have learned from watching my own budgies and what I have learned about their natural behaviors I would guess that yours is either looking for something to tear up to make a nesting site in the cage or that he is looking for food. I would guess that he is looking for food. Budgies are ground foragers, which means that they scratch around on the ground to find their food. Another possibility is that his wings are clipped to limit his ability to fly. This is not good for the bird as flight is their primary means of escaping from danger. It also has many mental, emotional and physical effects that are bad for him, one of them is that a bird that has been clipped can't balance on a perch as well as one that is not clipped and this could result in more time spent on the bottom of the cage.
It is also possible that he is not feeling well as a sick bird will also spend more time on the bottom of the cage. Since I am only giving you some of the most likely possibilities because I do not have enough information to give any more accurate ideas of what is happening, I suppose that it is time to ask questions and for pictures so that we can see what he looks like.
Lets start with what is he doing on the bottom of the cage? Is he just sitting there or is he active and moving around a lot? What are you feeding him and when are you feeding him? Where are the perches in his cage located? Are they in the middle of the cage, in the upper part of the cage or nearer the bottom? Has he been taken to an avian vet yet for a wellness exam and check up?
Please post some pictures of him as well as some that show where the cage is placed and what it looks like inside the cage. I am mostly concerned that he may be either hungry or sick and the pictures will help us to see his physical condition and the questions will also help us to give more accurate information to you.

[Pajarita]

One more thing to add is that a healthy and fully flighted budgie will never spend most of his time on a perch. It doesn't happen, they are flighty so don't expect it because, if it happens, there is something wrong.

[Kaylajess]

I have two different size perches for him but yes I'll add a more natural one still if that helps him. He has all his flight feathers and is getting better at flying each day. His food bowl is on the floor and he easily gets in and out. He has his seed during the day and in the afternoon I have been introducing veggies and fruit to see what he likes. He was so excited with his broccoli yesterday but didn't seem to eat too much of it, just sat on it! I'm no expert but he doesn't seem sick because of how active he is with playing with his toys and climbing around the cage. I can't work out how to add pics as the files are too big. Along with his perches he has a ladder that he climbs up a couple of balls with bells to push around on the floor, a toy hanging to chew and tear up and a hamick to sleep in ( doesn't sleep in it but does climb in every now and then)