Finger Training new Parakeet.

[asokatonu]

Hey!



I just recently got a Parakeet. I have wanted one for a long time and I finally did it about a week and a half ago. After a bunch of research, I sadly was unable to find any breeders or rescues to get one from. So I finally gave in and got one from a larger pet store. She is beautiful! On Wednesday I will have had her for 2 weeks. She seems very comfortable. I video her singing and she loves to sing and dance along with that. She also loves it when let her out so she can fly around the room. She is very comfortable with me and she is ok with my hands being in the cage. She will even step onto my finger and hang out there with the offer of a treat, but She is still not super comfortable with my hand. She only steps onto it if I have a treat and even then she is often hesitant and I have to wait patiently. I understand that training and taming take time, patience, and persistence. I was just wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to help show Her that my hands are not evil. Also, any training/taming tips would be appreciated. Last, of all, I am trying to wean her off her seed/pellet diet onto straight pellets, but she appears to be even more stubborn than my old rooster! Any help or suggestions would be AWESOME!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Zoohtasim]

Hey!



I just recently got a Parakeet. I have wanted one for a long time and I finally did it about a week and a half ago. After a bunch of research, I sadly was unable to find any breeders or rescues to get one from. So I finally gave in and got one from a larger pet store. She is beautiful! On Wednesday I will have had her for 2 weeks. She seems very comfortable. I video her singing and she loves to sing and dance along with that. She also loves it when let her out so she can fly around the room. She is very comfortable with me and she is ok with my hands being in the cage. She will even step onto my finger and hang out there with the offer of a treat, but She is still not super comfortable with my hand. She only steps onto it if I have a treat and even then she is often hesitant and I have to wait patiently. I understand that training and taming take time, patience, and persistence. I was just wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to help show Her that my hands are not evil. Also, any training/taming tips would be appreciated. Last, of all, I am trying to wean her off her seed/pellet diet onto straight pellets, but she appears to be even more stubborn than my old rooster! Any help or suggestions would be AWESOME!

Thanks in advance!

Seems like you are doing a great job! I don't think you need any other tricks as what you are doing right now is kinda perfect? Just do what you are doing now regularly and frequently and she will be tamed fast I hope! Good luck!

 

[asokatonu]

It sounds like you're doing great! Just time and patience. A lot of budgies take a while to warm up to you, especially pet store budgies. Maybe trying a smaller pellet size would help? My budgie was disgusted with pellets until I got a smaller size.

I have a finch/canary size pellet that I am using right now because I read that they seem to prefer the smaller size, but I haven't really had very much luck. She picks at them and then just throws them out of her dish. I got a pic of her hanging out on my finger. As long as there is millet she couldn't care less what she is standing on! Her name is Cielo by the way.

 

[HappyClucker7]

An all pellet diet is bad for budgies. They absolutely need seeds in their diet. But, the most important part of their diet is vegetables. I feed my budgies about 25% seeds (an organic seed mix that I make myself), 25% pellets (Harrison's Super Fine), and 50% fresh vegetables.
What I usually do is give them seeds in the morning (right after they wake up) and then they get pellets and vegetables for the rest of the day, until right before bed time, where I give them seeds again.
If your budgie refuses to touch the pellets (although remember, it can take a while) you might want to try some other brands. Some budgies are very, very picky, and will only eat one brand of pellets.
What I did to get my budgies to eat vegetables, is I sprinkled some millet seeds over the top. When they went to eat the millet, they accidentally ate some vegetables, and realized that it tasted good. Also they cutting the vegetables in different sizes. Most people feed their birds chop, but mine hate that. They only eat slightly bigger pieces, and it needs to be absolutely fresh, lol. Other birds prefer big pieces that they can chew on. Also, try lots of different types of vegetables. Broccoli is a favorite, because the top is like a seed. My budgies also love carrot tops, celery (don't give too much), and swiss chard.
You can try to sprinkle seeds on the pellets too, but it's very easy for them to just pick out the seeds. I actually pretended to eat the pellets (and acted as if they were delicious), and then I just offered the pellets in my hand and they started eating them, lol.
For taming, what you're doing with the millet is very good. You just have to be really patient, and don't push her too much. Let her decide when she wants to be with you and when not. Don't force her to do anything.
When she's finally eating vegetables, you can bring the bowl and hold it while she eats out of it. That really helped my budgies get comfortable with being near my hands.
You can also try some simple training. A great one to start with is target training. Just take a chopstick and teach her to touch the end of it. Start by putting it close to her, and wait until she moves towards it, or reaches for it, then quickly reward her with millet. She'll learn that she needs to go near the stick, and then she'll start touching it. When she touches it for the first time, give her a big reward to show that that's what you want. Eventually, she'll start following the stick everywhere.

 

[ButtonHoarder]

It sounds like you're doing great! Just time and patience. A lot of budgies take a while to warm up to you, especially pet store budgies. Maybe trying a smaller pellet size would help? My budgie was disgusted with pellets until I got a smaller size.

 

[Serin]

You've made good progress.

Weaning budgies to pellets is difficult, more than other birds. I know someone with a budgie that starved to death instead of even trying to eat pellets, so be cautious.

Also... It appears that 'she' is a young male, about 5 months. Female budgies won't have pink or purple ceres. Young males do - and adult males of certain mutations.

"Her" mutation is dominant pied opaline sky blue, so the cere will turn a dark royal blue within the next couple of months.

 

[asokatonu]

You could maybe try giving just pellets first thing, then some seeds a few hours later, or sooner if he/she doesn't eat any.

That is a good idea. I could try giving him pellets first thing in the morning when he is most hungry then provide him with seeds a bit later. So then he won't starve to death from stubbornness, but maybe he will be more willing to try the pellets if he is a bit hungry. I'll give it a go!

Thank you!

 

[ilikepigeons]

It's good that you are feeding pellets, but my opinion is they should not be 100% of the diet of any bird. The concern with pellets is they are formulated for parrots in general and include a lot of calcium. Budgies don't need as much calcium as other parrots, and the excess calcium from too many pellets puts their kidneys under pressure and in extreme cases can cause kidney failure through calcification. That's why I use a speicies specific pellet, made for finches and budgies specifically, I use that for my diamond doves and canaries too. Also, budgies are granivores and need a good portion of seed in the diet.
I don't get the thing about seeds being high in fat, my seed mix is actually lower in fat than my pellets. Of course there are seeds that are high in fat, such as sunflower seeds, but when portion control is practiced with seed mix (they eat everything in the bowl) the fat percentage overall is much less.
My seed mix fat percentage : 6.1% (Topflite budgie mix, ingredients: NZ Canary Seed, White French Millet, Hulled Oats, Panicum. )
My Pellets fat percentage : 8.0% (Vetafarm finch and budgie crumbles)
For my birds, they get all the pellets they can eat all day, and then at night they get as much seed mix as is gone in the morning.
Pellets are essential for birds though, it's difficult to get all the nutrients a bird needs in their diet, let alone completely balanced, pellets do that job for us.
The best pellet is the one your bird will eat. Try different varieties, s/he may just not like zupreem. Mine hated vetafarm at first, then hated roudybush, then loved harrisons but it was too expensive for me, and when I tried vetafarm again, they decided they like it, so I will stick with that.
Sprouts are a good food, often more easily accepted by 'seed junkies' than veggies. They are higher in certain nutrients and they bring down the fat percentage even more, using that energy to grow. Try just letting the seed grow till you can see the tiniest tip of the sprout, so it is less likely your bird will notice. You can let them grow a little more as your birds get used to them.
Try get he/r eating fruit and vegetables if you can. Carrot, apple (that has been a gateway food for my lovebirds), romaine/cos lettuce (a favourite with my budgie), cucumber, dandelion, chickweed, sow thistle, and many more.
My budgie also LOVES green grass heads if you can get ones that are safe (no chemicals). I hang them in the cage with a peg and he goes bats getting the immature seed out. It's a natural food for them in the wild. Prairie grass is the favourite, but orchard grass is a close second. (some picture examples)

S/he's a gorgeous little budgie! Congratulations on getting her. Looks like you are doing an awesome job of taming the little fella

 

[ilikepigeons]

No bird should be a tad hungry to force them to eat something they dont like

It's not forcing, it's encouraging. And the hopes are, they will realize they do like it once they try a single pellet or a nibble or vegetable. If I always offered my birds free feed seeds and pellets are the same time (letting them choose what they like, never making them the tiniest bit hungry whatsoever) I can almost guarantee you that they would pick out their favourite 1 seed and not eat anything else, and that's not good for them at all.
It's like refusing to give a small child food just before dinner, because if you do it will spoil their appetite and they won't eat (the usually healthier) dinner.
Much worse for a bird to be on an all seed diet, if being hungry is what gets them onto a healthier diet that's fine.
For extremely difficult birds, it is even recommended by many experts as a last resort to do 'Controlled Cold Turkey'. They don’t recommend cold turkey, they recommend controlled cold turkey which is different and used when birds are either in desperate need of conversion or simply don’t take to anything else. Cold turkey is dumping out all their seed and never giving them anything until they starve to death, controlled cold turkey is offering the pellets without seeds present, weighing them regularly to track their health in the hopes that the belief of no other food source will make them try it. As soon as the birds start dropping weight you return them to their normal diet and try again at a later time, small levels of weight fluctuation (0-5%) are safe and happens regularly in the wild between available food sources and seasonal changes. Obviously not the preferred method of conversion, a very last resort type thing, but for some birds it is necessary, and if they didn't do this, they would likely die of health problems caused by inappropriate diet.

 

[asokatonu]

Ok! Wow thanks for all of those posts guys! I am going to try to soak the pellets tomorrow and see if he will eat them. If not I think I'll give what @ilikepigeons said a try. Give the pellets in the morning and then provide seeds a little later. He normally gets up around 6:00 with me so if I just fill his food dish with pellets at night right as he is going to bed and then switch it to his normal seed blend around 7:30ish would that be ok?
I know that It can take consistency I guess I'll just have to be more stubborn than he is and outlast him.

I was hoping that since he was younger he would take to the pellets better.
I'll get some broccoli and kale or something from the store maybe he will be more interested in something green? I tried floating some corn in his bathwater yesterday, but he didn't touch it. He definitely eyeballed it, but that was all. I think I will also try floating some corn or carrots in his bathwater again because I think he was interested just not enough to check them out.

Thank you for all of the help and support! As always any other information is very welcome.