preventive care advice for baby budgie

[Veronica]

So yesterday I brought home a baby budgie can you please advise me on what the best method of approach is? What I need to know what I need to do to prevent any problems I might cause without knowing? I dont know exactly how old he is or if hes is a male or female they said hes too young to sex but his name is banana and hes very beautiful. I was told its best to have only one if I want to tame him and then I could give him a buddy. To my understanding budgies are flock oriented so I dony want him by himself too long. I just dont want to do anything wrong

[liz]

Two would be better. They feel safer with a back up and may even bond faster especially if they are babies.
I have taken in two or more at a time of rescued birds and the multiples seem to settle and trust me faster.

[Wolf]

I saw this earlier, but did not answer right away as I wanted to think about it first. I do have a mated pair of budgies, but they came to me together. They were both adults and I have no idea as to their ages. Also I have put very little time into taming them. The male has liver issues and the female has plucked for so long that she will never regrow he feathers as she has pretty much destroyed the follicles that they grow from.
As much as I don't like it, I do think that if you are wanting to have them bonded to you as companions, then I would say to tame the first one and establish your bond with it before getting another. I think that in this manner that you will be more successful. You would also have to tame and try to bond with the second one while you have it in quarantine. Even with that the second one may not bond as closely to you as the first one. If it is not as important to you then I would get the first one a mate as soon as possible. Both ways will make the budgies happier as they really do need to have a mate.
As for what to do to begin with and this will apply to both of them. By the way your budgie that you just got should be quarantined, to protect you other bird, for at least 30 days although 45 days is better.
I think that your budgie is probably only weaned to seeds or maybe even pellets, since that is the new trend. So while it is in quarantine I would begin to introduce it to fresh produce beginning with romaine lettuce. I think that I would offer the lettuce to it in three ways. I would shred some of it and place it on top of another leaf of it on the bottom of its cage and I would also make sure that this lettuce is wet, because the budgie may use the leaf on the bottom as a bath as well as eating it. I would also tie one leaf to the bars of its cage. That give it three choices with the lettuce. I would also begin to offer it some gloop in the mornings also on the bottom of the cage and it could be placed on the lettuce or on a paper plate. The reason for these being on the bottom of the cage is that budgies are naturally ground feeders. Eventually your budgies should have gloop and fresh produce, they might eat some fruit, but are not really big on it, for breakfast and a basic seed mix for dinner.
As for taming the bird, you should probably get some sprig type millet for use as a treat.
Watch your bird from the time you enter the room it is in, look at it from the corners of your eyes and not straight on, this is due to the fact that predators look at them straight on and you don't want you new friend to get the impression that she is dinner. Watch to make sure that the new bird is relaxed before you begin to approach the cage and then while talking to the bird you begin to approach the cage, just sort of meander your way in the general direction of the cage stopping any time the bird begins to act nervous and approaching only when the bird is calm and relaxed. This might take a few sessions before you make it to the cage, but it is worth it to go slow. When you make it to the cage spend a couple of minutes to just talk and sing to the bird before you offer any of the millet to the bird and once you offer it a piece through the cage bars, you should leave it in the feed cup for the bird. I think that it is very important that once you offer something to the bird that it is left for it and not taken away. Just offer the millet through the bars near the perch that the bird is on and wait for the bird to come to get it. Always wait and allow the bird to come to you, never chase the bird as it only serves to scare it and will make taming take longer and interfere with the bird learning to trust you. Make these session about 15 minutes long and talk and sing to the bird the whole time you are doing the session. Always use the birds name as much as possible during these sessions so that it learns its name as well as the sound of your voice.
Eventually the bird will come to you for the millet but don't get in a hurry and keep doing the same thing until the bird is not only coming for the treat but begins to come to the side of the cage that you are on as you approach, you really want the bird to want your presence and to try to come to you before you move on to the next step.
Now that your new friend is looking forward to seeing you and calmly taking the millet from you through the cage bars it is time to sit or stand in front of the cage and remove the bars by opening the cage door. As always keep talking and singing to the bird during the session and offer the millet right at the entrance to the cage. It is important that you do not reach into the cage, you want the bird to come to you. Be patient and consistent and the bird will come to you for the millet and calmly eat it from the sprig in your fingers. When this happens start to hold the millet so that the bird needs to stretch to get the millet or step onto your hand to get it. It is important to also reward the birds attempts, such as right at first when it touches your hand move the millet closer and let it have a few bites of it. Do the same when it puts one foot on your finger or hand until the bird is stepping onto your hand. It is important that you do not reach into the birds cage except as needed to change out food and water or for cleaning the cage. This is the point where you would begin to work with target training the new bird.
During this time I would schedule the cage cleaning in the early evening or late afternoon shortly before dinner time. By shortly before dinner time I mean about a couple of hours before giving its dinner. I would do this so that the bird can have some out of cage time with you present. For this just open the cage and back away and do something else, but keep talking to the bird but otherwise watching but ignoring the bird. Let the bird come out and fly about or whatever while you clean the cage and put its dinner in the cage. It is important that when it is time to feed the bird its dinner that it sees you put the food in the cage so that it learns to return to its cage for dinner and to roost for the night. The bird will learn to do this, but if it does not return to the cage before it gets dark just wait for it to roost and cautiously go to the bird and pick it up and place it in the cage.

[Pajarita]

Yep, perfect advice and only three things to add:
1) make sure there are perches outside his cage (like the ones you use a screw thing to fasten it to the bars, only on the outside), above his cage (for this you should use natural tree branches -they like to climb) and in different parts of the room so, when he flies off, he has a place where he can perch.
2) thoroughly bird proof the room where he is going to be flying around. An amazon is one thing but a budgie is another - they are so tiny, they can fall behind a piece of furniture and break a wing in the process.
3) always use the same phrase when you are serving him his seed dinner. He will learn to recognize it and will fly to his cage to get it as soon as you say it.

[Veronica]

Ok awesome I'm so glad you guys are so willing to answer my questions theres not alot of ppl out there like you! I will try tjese methods and get back to you on our progress thank you!!!!!!

[Wolf]

Thank you !

[Veronica]

Ok so I felt bad keeping him by himself and I got him a buddy. I think I did this too soon because now they are both biting me. She taught the first one to bite in 1 day together. They will not take any treats from me at all and they bite. Lol for such tiny birds they bite pretty hard. They love each other already but they dont like me at all. What do I do? Is there a way to tame them while they are together? And how do I make them stop biting? Sometimes I leave there cage open while I'm in the room and they will flight out after an hour but not on the perches that are outside of the cage they just fly out aimlessly as as far away from me as possible. So I have grab them and get them to their cage and in that process they bite me.

[Wolf]

I understand and I can not fault you for caring this much about your bird, but you really need to always quarantine new birds from your older birds because you do not know what diseases they may have that they can infect you other birds with. This is a big mistake to make. If you have only had this new bird for a couple of days, maybe it is not too late to separate them and do the quarantine. You have not had the first budgie for very long so if you got the second one from the same place then it is likely that there is no problem. But this is something that you really can't count on. Not wanting to get on you but I do want you to know the right way to proceed.
The reason that they are biting is because they are scared of both their new surroundings and of you. Yes you got in a bit of a hurry and I have already told you how to hand tame them, that was in my first reply to you in this topic. This will still work although it will take longer with two of them than it would have with only one.
I would make or get some small free standing perches and put a couple of them in the places that they are flying to in the room so that they have a couple of good places to land. I would also try opening their cage only a couple of hours before their dinner time and make sure that they watch you put their dinner in the cage, I would turn off the lights and let them enjoy their time out and just watch them and then they should start going back to the cage for their dinner. If they do not and that is likely the first few times let it get dark and they will go to sleep where they are. If you plan on this you will have a dish towel on hand and a flashlight so then you shine the light onto the floor so that you can see to quietly move to them and with the dish towel in your hand reach up and gently grab one of them with the toweled hand and put it in the cage. Try to not shine the light on them as it will wake them and they may fly and then you will have to find where they land and try again.
Budgies really can't bite all that hard and have trouble even breaking the skin, but they do bite much harder than you would expect from them. Be happy they are not parrotlets who while being smaller than budgies bite much harder and can break the skin fairly easily. Try this and let me know how it works. Toweling them can work even without it being dark but you really don't want to do it too much as it is scary to them until such time as you can teach them to accept it but that usually comes later on.