Making amends and fixing my stupidity

[maheshanchan]

I’ve had a cute little parakeet named sunset for about a month she is around 5 months old and has not had a good time living in my house It has a big cage with lots of toys and such but some people here including myself have stupidly grabbed her a lot and definitely scared her and have lost her trust

I am going to start my journey of regaining her trust ASAP because I love her so much and I want her to be happy and live a long and love filled life and that will never happen when I or others in my house grab her and scare her to death

I’m going to be making sure no one including myself grabs her ever again And restarting the process of gaining her trust all over by not putting my hands in the cage for a long time except for food and such and talking to her every day while displaying my hand outside the cage as well as feeding her through the cage bars I’m going to wait until she’s 100% ready to come out of the cage and wait for her to want to come out on her own

[Pajarita]

Hi, Mahe and welcome to the forum. You don't say what species of parakeet you have... is it a budgie? In any case, I hope that you have been feeding the right kind of food because any bird that is only 4 or 5 months old requires soft food.

You are on the right track but, if this bird was parent-raised instead of hand-fed and has been severely traumatized for a month, it might never really trust humans again. I am not trying to be mean, criticize you or discourage you but studies tell us that baby birds that are stressed out when very young remain high-strung for the rest of their lives so I urge you to be extremely patient and not to set your goals of a relationship between you and the bird too high. Also, she doesn't need to trust you to come out of her cage and go back into it. I have a parent-raised GCC that was never socialized and lived under stressful conditions (to the point that she plucks) and she comes out of her cage to fly and goes back into it every day. It takes a lot of patience and, most of all, it requires a super strict solar schedule and the right diet (meaning, not free-feeding protein food) but any bird can be trained to go back on her own when it's time. What I do is, I let her out at dawn while I clean all the cages and put fresh food and water in them, then I turn on the overhead lights and tell her: 'Go home! Que rica papa!' She knows that means she needs to go back into her cage (the 'Go home' part) and that there is food there for her (the 'Que rica papa' one). Sometimes, not often but every now and then and especially when I am in a hurry because I need to run an errand, I have to put a teeny tiny little bit of seed in her cage to 'convince' her.