how do i make my budgie stay put for training?

[localpigeon]

My budgie, Maxi (3 months old), will never stay in one place for long enough for me to train him. He is trained to fly to my finger (short distance) without clicker. He was ill when I got him and he's just getting stronger now and loves flying around. He will step up (most of the time) and as soon as I put him on a perch or anywhere else he will get distracted and look for a new place to fly to. How do I get him to pay attention on me and the training for longer?

Any clever ideas for me to try?

He's on sort of a training diet because he's just getting used to pellets. I give him pellets during the day and seeds only if he comes to me. But he's not that keen on the pellets because I don't see him eating them that much, he will chew on them sometimes but not much.

I'm not weighting him because he doesn't sit still on the scales (perch) but I do give him "eat as much as you can" seeds in the morning and evening for about half hour each time and he eats a few fresh veggies every couple of days.

[Kathleen]

1) Make sure your budgie is a little hungry to desire the treats from you before you take him out. Make sure your budgie is interested in training.
2) Try to eliminate distractions. If you have a small room where your budgie wouldn't have many places to fly away to or things to fly on, that would be the most suitable place to bring him.
3) Keep training sessions very short, but you can do more of them.
4) You said your budgie Maxi doesn't always step up. Your budgie simply needs to be more hand tame. It sounds like your budgie needs more practice with you on stepping up. You can work with your budgie on target or stick training. Hand taming your budgie would probably solve a lot of the problem.
5) A quick solution would be to clip your bird, but I absolutely DON'T think you should, just my personal opinion.
6) Your budgie is also still young. Keep going with the pellet diet transition. I think once the transition is complete, you will have a much easier time with the training diet (not to be confused with starving of course).

Unfortunately, budgies are extremely hyper and this is one of the problems I faced with Duke because he would refuse to stay. Whenever he wanted to go back to his cage, he would just fly off. He couldn't gain any height, but budgies are small, and he could glide a pretty far distance. He was ALWAYS eager to come out to be with me, but it's probably a combination of keeping him out too long, him getting bored of training/him being hyper, and his low attention span.

What I think you should do is put your budgie on a perch, and be quick to react before he flies off. Offer him a treat on a perch immediately. Let him eat from your hand so that he's immediately focused on getting the food and won't fly off. Teach him that when he's on a perch near you, he's going to get a treat by taking him off and putting him on, reward each time for a few times. Then he might have more motivation to stay on it. You want him to associate you with getting his favorite foods so he'll enjoy being with you and coming out of his cage to step up onto your finger. Having your budgie eat out of your hand is the first step in basic training. Refer to this sticky article about the steps to take after that: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227

[localpigeon]

Hi Kathleen,

Thank you very much for the tips. It's hard to imagine that my hyper little budgie will one day sit for long enough to learn anything.

But everyday I have been noticing, very, very small progress. Unfortunately I don't have a single room in the flat that is free from interesting perching places. I train him in his bedroom. He never flies back to his cage because he fears I'm going to lock him in there - he does fly to the cockatiels' cage whenever he has a chance.

I will try and keep training section shorter. I think that might be the solution.

It's good to know however that other people have gone through the same thing. I won't give up. By the way, have you seen this video? It shows you how much budgies are able to do.

[Kathleen]

I have seen that video before. Budgies are highly underestimated little parrots, but they are intelligent and capable of learning many many things.

[localpigeon]

Can I just say that I have changed the way a deal with my budgie, it's been a week. I no longer chase him to put him back in his cage anymore. I have adapted so that the budgie can just stay out if he wants to and go back to his cage as he wishes.

In the meantime I have been training him t come to finger when he's called which started by just giving him a treat whenever she came (even when not called) to only giving treats when he came after I asked him to.

Now his relationship with me has changed so much that he comes to me all the time now (not always when the cockatiels are out with him) but I can see he enjoys spending time with me which he didn't before.

So one thing I have learnt from this is that it is really necessary to earn the trust of a flighted bird and you will never get anywhere by forcing them to do things they don't want to do. Even if this means a lot of waiting around at the beginning...

[Michael]

Congratulations, you just discovered positive reinforcement.

And the same holds true for non-flighted birds as well. Flighted birds fly away when they are scared. Clipped birds bite. Either way if you behave incorrectly, you will either be chasing the bird around trying to get it back or getting bit all the time.

[Kathleen]

Sounds like you made some great progress so far. Things must be getting even better by now! Let us know how things are coming along with your budgie and keep us updated.

[amiliak]

Hello, I have a few questions regarding training diets and diet in general for my new budgies.

Both of my budgies are quite young, roughly 7-8 weeks. The boy (Orly) has been with me for about a week and the girl (kizzie) has only been here for 2 days (they are clutchmates).
The birds were weened to a seed based diet which I am attempting to rectify by including pellets in their feed dishes. I don't think either one of them have eaten any pellets yet. The issue is that neither one of them is particularly motivatedby millet or the other treats I bought because they get seed in their regular feed. I am keen to start a training diet so they're a little hungry for clicker training but I am unsure how much food I should be giving them and at what time. Mon-Fri Iwork days so during the week the birds are out of the cage from 5-9 pm; as such I leave food in their dishes during the day. When they come out a 5 they are definately not hungry but I would like to do training with them soon after arriving home. Any ideas? The feed schedule (or lack there of) is less of an issue on the weekends as they are out of the cage from first thing in the morning until night time. I leave the food in the cage but both birds prefer to be outside the cage so they never go in there if they are out having fun.

My second querie relates to daily diet. The breeder I got the birds from said I should wait to give them veggies and fruit because if I did now they would probably suffer from diarhea. Is this true, and if it is how long should I wait?

[pchela]

Hi,

I can answer your second question. Babies should be offered fresh foods (fruits and veggies) as soon as they start to wean so you can most definitely offer them fresh foods and should! They may have a bit runnier stools because of the extra water they'll get from the fruit and veggies but that's not diarrhea. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get them to try new foods so I'd do it now.

[amiliak]

Thanks for the reply. Everything I have read contradicts what the breeder told me but I'm a new bird person so I thought I would check it out with others. I have also managed to get the budgies to eat a bit of pellet feed by moistening it for them.