Not satisfied with Budgie...

[Alfie]

I bought a budgie looking for an interactive pet. I found that budgies are tamable and bond with their owners, did a lot of research, then went to buy a male. The budgies at the store had all been through their molts, so I chose a healthy-looking one with blue in the cere which even the store owner said was male. She turned out to be female, but I hoped it wouldn't matter. She recently started biting, and it's not the cuddly kind of biting. I'm very nice and gentle with her and spend a lot of time with her. She won't come out of the cage, and, if I take her out, she instantly flies back in. She won't go near me unless treats are involved, won't bathe, doesn't seem curious about anything, and all day she just sits and does... nothing. No, she's not sick, doesn't seem constipated, has been to the vet, eats and drinks, etc. But is there anything I can do about her behavior or is that just the way she is going to be?

[Wolf]

Hi Alfie, welcome back to the forum. How long have you had this new budgie? Please let us know what you are doing with this budgie, you know, what is the daily routine and so on. As always the more background information that you can give us helps us to work out what is going on and why so that we can try to help you. Remember that we don't know anything unless you tell us so you are our eyes and ears into your birds life.

[Alfie]

Ok. Our daily routine is pretty much this:
-I wake up around 7, get ready for school, tell her good morning, change out food and water, then leave at 7:55
-While I'm at school, She is by a window and likes to chirp to the birds on the other side
- On most days I get home around 3:20. I almost always go check on her straight away. She's usually sitting on a natural stick perch in her cage. I interact with her multiple times a day after school, I try to teach her tricks but so far she will only step up and bite the end of a straw as a target trick. I hold millet about 5 inches away from her, usually she comes and gets some. If I put my finger in front of the millet and say step up, she will. She never seems to care about interacting with me, however. Once the treats are taken away, she just goes back to the stick perch on the other side of her cage. Around 7:30, I talk to her in a sweet voice until she's asleep for the night.


Is this behavior what could be expected from any budgie or only the females? I believe I would be able to return her to the same pet store for another bird and possibly a male this time as I had originally hoped to get.

[Wolf]

All parrots are individuals and so will respond differently to you as an individual. While there are some things that all of them have in common, this appears to be individual in nature. It appears that she has not yet bonded to you and this could be simply due to the length of time that you have had her or it could be related to the nature of your interactions with her or a combination of both of these things.
You are very reluctant to tell us anything and that makes it hard to say much with any sort of accuracy. The answers to your questions are in the details. How do you interact with her, what do you do and how does she react to that? How much time out of the cage do you give her daily? I assume that since she came from a pet store that her wings have been clipped and most birds find this to be depressing and it is not good for them either.

[liz]

She is depressed and bored since you took her away from her friends. Have you considered getting another. Two turn into little clowns. About 40 years ago I had 2. No idea if they were male or female, it didn't matter to me. We did laugh a lot at them.

My father had Hodgkins lymphoma and spent most of his day sitting in the living room. When we had to go out we put the budgies near him. They bonded with him and entertained him so that he never was alone.

[liz]

She is depressed and bored since you took her away from her friends. Have you considered getting another. Two turn into little clowns. About 40 years ago I had 2. No idea if they were male or female, it didn't matter to me. We did laugh a lot at them.

My father had Hodgkins lymphoma and spent most of his day sitting in the living room. When we had to go out we put the budgies near him. They bonded with him and entertained him so that he never was alone.

[Alfie]

Ok, thanks. I don't really know what to say about the way we interact, I give her treats and have her step up onto my finger a few times per day. I show her shiny things for her to play with, lay containers of water at the bottom of the cage to see if she'll bathe, and I'll occasionally see if she'll let me give her a head scratch etc. I spend a lot of time in my room with her and she watches me move around if the window is closed. For almost all the time I spend in my room, the door to her cage is open, but she prefers to stay in the cage. I've taken her out a few times, but she would only let me do that if she had treats the entire time, and she would go back into the cage asap. Her wings are still clipped from when we got her, but it looks like her feathers are growing back. Maybe she will be more confident outside the cage once that happens. After I offer her treats and the sun has gone down, I sometimes stroke her belly. When I do this she closes her eyes, so I think she may like it? Or she could just be tired and not care. The biting started two days ago, she nibbled down my fingers, which didn't hurt, but then bit down of the tips and then tried to pry my fingernail off like a nut. I'm sure this isn't because she is hungry. Maybe I should get her a friend.

[Wolf]

Alfie, there is a lot of information here on the forum that you really should be aware of, so I really don't understand why you quit coming here after your experience with your last budgie. I would have used the time to soak up all of it that I could before I got this last one, or at the very least kept on asking questions. Oh well, you are here now and I will try to supply you with as much information as I can, in an effort to make things easier for you and your new bird.
Yes by all means ,I would get a second budgie. all parrots regardless of the species should be gotten in pairs due to their highly social nature. They do so much better that way, and this is even more important with many of the smaller ones like budgies. This doesn't always make taming or training easier for you but it does them wonders. This is due to the nature of bonding.
Really, this may sound strange to you, but it is true, you should only pet your bird on its head, neck and beak as all other areas are erogenous zones and by petting and rubbing them you are touching them in an inappropriate manner and stimulating her sexually. You don't want to do that. Also you need to put her on a solar light schedule starting right now. This simply means that she gets up and goes to sleep with the rising and setting of the sun. It is also important that she is uncovered in the morning before the sky starts to get light so that she is exposed to the twilight period called dawn and that the lights are turned off about an hour before dark so that she gets the light of the twilight period in the evening that is called dusk. The reason for this is that is how they keep their internal clock properly tuned to the correct time of the year, by being able to measure the length of the days and nights.
At her age, and with the amount of socialization that she has not had this biting is called beaking and for the most part doesn't normally hurt, it is just her feeling your finger as well as tasting it so that she knows that it is not food, or sometimes to make sure that it is strong and steady enough to use as a perch. It is also an exercise in her trying to groom you, and then she comes to your nail and yours is a lot different than hers in shape and texture so she thinks that it should not be there and is trying to do you a favor and get it off of you. Also sometimes when they are doing this grooming, called allopreening, to you, they will bite down too hard. This is not meant to hurt you, but it does because you are a defective bird due to your lack of protective feathers. So you must teach her to not bite so hard and that you want to keep your fingernails. Try not to make a big deal of it, but don't be afraid to say "Ouch!, No Bite" or something similar so that she can figure out that it hurts and not to do that.

make sure that there is a screen in your window and that it is in good repair, because even if it is too cold to open your window for now you will appreciate as the weather grows warmer. The process of taming, earning your birds trust and bonding with her all take time, a lot of time. So if their is enough room for it in your room you should set a small table and chair up near the front or side of her cage along with a way for her to get to it on her own until her wings regrow so that she can fly to it. You will be able to use it for a training table as well as a good place to hang out and play with her as well as a place for you to do things on. Doing things on the table while you are in the room with her will get her curious about what you are doing and cause her to want to come over to see what you are doing, don't forget to talk, talk, talk to her while you are at the table doing something. This will help to win her trust and help with the bonding process. When she bonds to you she will want to spend time with and on you instead of on or in her cage and the time spent out of the cage will also help her to get used to her surroundings.
You may be surprised but for toys to play with but plain unpainted, untreated pieces of pine wood or balsa wood for chewing up and destroying might be better than shiny things. I keep toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, as well as a little typing paper on hand for toys. They love to tear these things up also pieces of corrugated cardboard. My birds prefer these toys over the expensive toys from the pet store.
you should also start feeding her some fresh green leafy vegetables such as bok choy, red leaf or romaine lettuce, but not iceberg lettuce, that is the one that grows in a ball and no avocado as it isn't good for them and the avocado is toxic to them.
OK, well this is a start on some of the things that you need to know and that you can start using right away. I hope that I didn't bore you too much and I hope that you use the information.

[Pajarita]

My dear, budgies, contrary to what some people say, are not really interactive birds. They are flighty little things that like to do their own thing and, most of all, they like to be with other budgies. I know that you are disappointed but the only way you can get a budgie to accept a human is isolating it from all other birds and that's a real cruel thing to do to a defenseless little bird which thrives on flock interaction. People talk about how cute Disco is, what with all the things he says but, in reality, Disco must be a very lonely little bird (he lives with three adult humans) and that's the only reason why he learned all those things. Making a budgie accept its human takes a lot of work, a lot of time and quite the cold heart because, like I said, it requires depriving them of what makes them happy. Have you considered a guinea pig? My grand-daughter has three and they are adorably cuddly!

[Alfie]

Thank you both! I will definitely use this information and will get another budgie. There is obviously a lot of information about budgies I have yet to learn, but I at least know the basics and won't give up on Snow. She does have toys besides shiny things haha. Her favorite is a hanging toy with plastic chains she likes to chew on/preen and woven circles made of some sort of stick. However, she started tearing those off and eating them. I've removed the toy for now, but is it ok for her to eat or should I unravel the stick from the toy? Also, would it be ok to move her cage over near my workspace during the day? It's just in another corner of my room so I don't think it would stress her out too much :/