6 week old Czech Budgerigar giving me hell?

[ilkergulal]

I got my bird last Friday,at June 17th. I got him,with the cage,the millet and the seeds from a pet shop a significant distance away from my house. I had to use public transportation and obviously his cage was shaken a lot on the way home. When I got it home,I put the cage in my bedroom. The bird was very still,not eating,making sound,drinking water,nothing. On the second day,I was scared he would die of starvation,I got some seeds and millet in my hand and fed it to the little guy,and fortunately he ate it,and drank water. Then,at the third day,since my bedroom was awfully quiet,we decided to move it to the living room. Unfortunately,my bright step father couldn't comprehend the idea of not being loud near a baby Budgie,so I had to move it back in my room until he shut up. I did,I got it back in the living room. As of now he is chirping a lot,sometimes stands and waits on his preferred perch or swing,sometimes goes crazy and moves in between perches,he still doesn't eat and drink by going near the containers,he's a bit frightened of me,I feed him by hand,his tail is trembling a lot. I change his food,water and cage liner daily,I feed him 3-4 times a day,his cage contains a swing,a bunch of perches,a bird bath,a water containers and two food bowls,what do I do for the little guy? How do I tame him? How does he feel now?

[ParrotsForLife]

You need to feed him vegetables and maybe fruit too as a seed diet alone is bad.Also make sure he has good perches which are Natural wood which look like tree branches outside and also those perches that file the nails and rope perches are comfortable too.Also he will need toys such as bells,wood and rope.I would also get him a cuttle bone.

[ilkergulal]

Thank you,but when do you think he'll be comfortable around me?

[ParrotsForLife]

Thank you,but when do you think he'll be comfortable around me?

You only have him a few days so it will take a few days for him to settle in his new him.You know him best so you will know when the right time is for training.If you need to talk you can message me on Facebook messenger and I'm also on Whatsapp.

[Wolf]

I was hopeing that you would have already received more responses than this before I said anything as although I have a couple of budgies, they came to me as adults and there are others here with much more experience with budgies than I have.

I would start by getting some paper plates, the all white ones with a raised edge on them to place your budgies food in on the bottom of it's cage. You do have to be careful to place it where the bird does not poop in it, maybe even rearranging perches so that the bird does not poop in its food. The reason for putting the food out in this manner is that it is the most natural way for a budgie to eat. They are ground feeders so pick up most of their foods from the ground. Budgies are not big on eating fruits but they will eat vegetables and things like romaine lettuce which can be offered shredded or as a whole leaf. It is often a wonderful thing for the budgie if you give them a whole leaf of the romaine or other leaf type lettuce with the leaf as wet as possible. Sometimes I pour a little water on the leaf after placing it on the bottom of the cage. This should help you a lot with your feeding problem.

Also to help your budgie feel more secure its cage needs to be placed so that the highest perch, usually the one it seems to prefer the most is at eye level when you are near the cage and it should be place so that at least one side of it is along a wall. If that is not possible then you can cover the top of the cage with a towel and let it drape down to cover one or two sides of the cage. This limits the number of directions that your bird has to keep watch for predators from. This is one of those areas that you have to learn to think more like your budgie in.

As to the matter of taming your bird you need to spend a lot of time near your bird talking to it and using its name as much as possible so that it not only learns its name but associates its name with itself and knows when you are speaking to it. Names are very important to parrots of all species, to such a degree that parrot parents name their young when they hatch and always use that name for them their entire lives. Let your budgie watch you while you do whatever it is that you do while you are not trying to interact with it so it can become accustomed to your presence and understand that you have no desire to eat it. Then you should familiarize yourself with their basic body language so that you can better understand what it is trying to tell you and so that you can better interact with the budgie. Here is a fairly good guide to your birds body language, it will help you a lot especially right at first http://littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/ ... guage.html

Look for the body language examples that indicate when the bird is relaxed and when it is getting nervous as you will need to know these early on to help you with taming the bird. I am late with feeding my birds, so I will return very shortly with information to help you with taming your budgie.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is correct in his advice so the only thing I have to add is that you might want to offer him the green in two places, a dripping leaf at the bottom of the cage and another one hanging from the top because some like to eat them high and some like to 'bathe' on the wet one on the floor. Also, I am sure he would like some nice multi-grain bread, too. It's nice and soft and babies like soft things to eat. Gloop or some cooked couscous or pastina mixed with pureed veggies (like carrots, for example) will work, too. I don't know what you mean by 'his tail is trembling a lot' but, if he is standing or perching and you see his tail going up and down, that is called 'a tail bob' and it's indication of a respiratory infection so watch him to see if this is happening.

[Wolf]

Alright, I am back to help you with how to start taming your budgie.

This is in addition to spending a great deal of time just hanging out in the same room as your budgies is in so that it can get used to you being there and not being afraid that you will eat it. Set aside two or three periods of 10 minutes each, once in the morning, one in the middle of the afternoon and one about an hour before dusk or dinner time. Skip the on in the middle of the day if you want to. Start with some sprig type of millet, it looks like seeds on a stick, you want it so that you can offer your bird a treat during these sessions. Start from across the room from your budgie and just call out the birds name so that it knows that you are talking to it. You are calling it a he so I will also for the remainder of this. Call his name and watch him from the corner of your eyes and not a full direct stare type of look as that is how a predator looks at a bird and you don't want him to think that you are looking at him as a snack. start talking to him, use a soft coaxing type of voice and while talking to him in this manner be sure to use his name a lot and give him lots and lots of good bird type of praise and encouragement. Look to see when he is relaxed, and start moving towards his cage, sort of meandering around the room kind of like a creek does through the landscape always coming closer and constantly talking to him and watching his so that if he starts getting nervous you can stop approaching until he relaxes again. Only move closer when he says that it is ok by relaxing. I know that this is time consuming, but taming is all about establishing trust. It might even take a couple of sessions until you can get all of the way to the cage using this manner of approach but it is worth it in the end. When it comes to your bird trust is everything to it. When you make it to the cage, still talking and praising your friend offer him a couple of bites of the millet through the bare of the cage at the perch he is on. He might come right over and take a bite or two or he might not. If he does not take any then just break off a small piece of the millet and place it in his food dish. Continue talking and praising him and offer him another bite of the millet in a couple of minutes. Again it might take a few sessions like this before he comes to take a bite of the millet, but be patient with him as you are building a foundation for your relationship with him, a foundation of trust. When the session is over and if he is not taking the millet from you through the bars of the cage be certain that before you walk away that you break of a piece of the millet and place it in his food dish.

Let us move on to where you are able to walk up to the cage pretty much directly. What you want to see is that not only can you walk directly to the cage but that when you call out his name at the beginning of the session he responds by coming towards you in anticipation of your coming to him. this is the first sign that this is working to build his trust in you and an indication that he wants to spend time with you. Now when he begins to take a bite of the millet through the bars of the cage, what you are looking for is that he comes over to get his treat when offered but he also takes it calmly and remains there while he eats it and then calmly takes and eats a second bite. These are also signs that his trust in you is growing. When you see these things from him for at least two sessions it is time for the next step of the taming process. Now when you approach the cage talking to him go to the main door of the cage and when you are directly in front of it, open the door and stay directly in front of it. Talk to him just as you have been doing and when it is time to offer him his treat do not reach in the cage. Offer the treat only right at the entrance to the cage and no place else. Since he is probably on the perch that he has been being on when you offered him a treat through the bars it is very tempting to reach into the cage to offer him a bite of the millet, but that is exactly what you do not want to do. This is still all about gaining his trust and he needs to come to you and take the treat from you directly at the cage door.

In order to help him with this you could place a perch just under the main door to his cage now, even before you begin these sessions so that he gets a chance to get used to it being there and is not afraid of it. When he comes over and takes his treat directly from you at the cage entrance and calmly eats it and does the same for a second bite you have two things that you can do next.

These two thing can be done at the same time, so to speak, as one does not need to happen before the other. The first is to use two hands at the cage entrance, one to hold the millet and the other to use as a perch for him. for this you continue just as you have been doing, but now you hold the millet so that your friend has to either step up onto your hand to eat the millet or he must stretch a bit to reach it to take a bite. you don't need to do anything else with this that is different than you have been doing. Just be patient and he will begin to step up on his own to get his treat, but it is a very major step in trusting you for him to do this. Just be patient and when he is ready he will start stepping up.

The other thing that you can do is to begin a different training session in which you begin to teach him the basics of targeting. here is a link for you that will teach you what you need to know and do in order to do this. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227

This should help you in the areas that you have asked about. Take your time and enjoy the process and your new budgie friend. Thank you for allowing us to help you with this.

[ilkergulal]

I will follow your advice and see how it goes!
I'll post an update on Friday,thanks folks.

[liz]

To begin with it is a baby. You took him from every and everything he knew which was not much but all he had.
You are a giant to be feared. Can you even imagine being afraid for 24 hours of the day? To him it is like he is a little kid who was taken from his mom and has been put in with a room full of bullies that he does not know.
For his sake, the best thing would be to give him a buddy for security. 2 kids in a room of bullies would be less afraid.

I have cockatiels who came from very bad places. Some are handicapped but all were afraid. The only thing I could think of was to give them a flock. The new ones disappear into the flock for safety. When they calm and realize they are not my lunch they come forward out of the flock to make contact with me. These are birds I thought would never want human contact again after all they have been through. Each one is calmed by another who "has their back" and will stick with them to comfort them from their fears.

Get this little baby a buddy.