Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
Peggie <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi, Love your website !
Thank you for that.
I’m hoping you can help me with training and integrating my birds.
I made the mistake of getting 4 budgies at the same time.
Doh !
They are 18 mo old now.
3 boys and 1 probably girl.
(thought they’d all be males, oops)
I’ve tried and tried and tried to finger train them.
They don’t want me, they want each other.
Buddy and Sami are together and won’t play, ever.
Sami sulks and pouts and sits.
Buddy is ambitious and active and irritates Sami 24/7, so I’m planning on getting Sami his own cage.
I’m hoping I can get more response from them being separate.
I’m assuming they’ll have to be in separate rooms from each other ?
The other two seem to have fallen deeply in love/bonded and are joyously flying in the “bird room”, feeding each other, playing.
Auzzie (male) will get on my finger to come out of the cage, but is ‘wild’ after that.
Sunny (yellow female) zooms right past me and won’t come to me.
I tried to have them all together and Buddy and Sunny (yellow female) just fight to the floor, so that’s a no-go. I’m so frustrated !
I feel I’ve made a huge mistake and will never have a happy flock that will sit on my hand and let me pet them.
I’ve looked at all the bird training sites and they’re always about parrots who will sit there and let you click and feed.
Crazy parakeets just will NOT do that. They’re too skittish. What in the world can I do or try ?
It’s been a year and a half and I’m nothing more than a budgie maid. Not what I was hoping for with these sweet babies.
Hope you can help. Thank you ! peggie
Peggie, Peggie, Peggie
Yes, you made the mistake when you got 4 parakeets at once if you wanted to have them as tame pets.
Birds of a feather flock together and you have no feathers.
I recommend you get them a nice big cage and let them enjoy life without being handled.
We did not intend to have 4 parakeets either. However it started when a customer came into my store with a keet he just caught outside on a cold day and gave it to me.
Mitch was enchanted and had the little guy (Bacon) on his hand right away. We thought he was tame.
Well, after a week of good food and housing he regained his strength and was no longer going to have anything to do with us..
We realized he was a feral parakeet and we would not be able to tame him.
He was extremely skittish and we decided to get him a buddy as parakeets do not do well alone if they don’t enjoy a humans company instead.
So along came Eggs who was a hand fed baby but housed with Bacon made Eggs jumpy too.
We decided to locate another couple keets to make them all more comfortable.
We were given an adult pair by a local breeder and introduced them (Toast and Jam) to the cage and tossed in some millet spray and low and behold, they are doing just fine.
It appears to be going well. We love to watch them.
For yourself, consider a new bird, one all for yourself.
We wish you the best.
Catherine Tobsing
file under “on the flip side (Quora)
mitchr answers
You can do whatever you want.
That said a single budgie is a different animal than having two or more budgies (see response above) and there’s the starting point.
We had been bird-less for more than a year after our cockatiel had passed from cancer when Bacon the first of four budgies that we now have arrived in our life.
Bacon was literally plucked out of a tree across the street from our shop. There was certainly a sign.
After paying our due diligence in social media and all the regular channels to see if anyone lost a predominantly blue budgie we kept him.
It was clear after three or four weeks that Bacon was miserable.
We clipped his wings severely and yet he was still able to gain altitude and move around his cage and the apartment in general so we kept him caged for his own safety.
After being around birds for almost 2 decades you can begin to tell if a bird is happy or sad. Bacon was very sad.
We decided to acquire a parrot but we were committed to hanging onto Bacon.
We felt the best course of action was to introduce a second budgie.
Once we had worked out the deal of acquiring Peaches our nine-year-old female Senegal we inquired with the rescue to see if they had any budgies?
They had one and we said we would take it regardless of sex thinking at the time that Bacon was a boy.
So along with the rehoming of Peaches our Senegal we deployed a new budgie cage where Bacon and his new best (rescued) friend “Eggs” would reside.
Setting aside all the excitement we were experiencing from the new Senegal in our home it was clear that Bacon was much happier with the new bird we had introduced.
Given the size of cage that we discussed introducing an additional budgie or two.
Providence provided 2 new budgies while we attended the National Caged Bird Club Show.
After taking you around the block I can tell you unequivocally, the budgies we have housed together, formed this remarkable little avian community.
My intent is to someday clip all of their wings and introduce them to our household.
Until then, they are captive within their cage and they seem to be perfectly happy in the current environment.
Their full spectrum LED comes on at 7:20 AM Central standard Time every morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOmFMywZRes
The little voices fill our home with heartwarming sounds.
They clearly have routines and a pecking order.
When any one of them wants to make a point, they will “helicopter” which means they will just flap their wings providing flight.
They will hover in a static position in the middle of the cage until they feel their entire idea has been communicated to the other three birds.
At the end of the day your decision will be to become a single budgie companion or a zookeeper.
The requirements are no different for any captive bird species regardless of size.
If you’re not willing to make that commitment, it’s okay.
Simply add more budgies into your life and commit to providing the best care possible.
[email protected] replied
hi i think i made a mistake regarding the pellets i fed my parakeets. I “think” i wrote higgins, but it was harrison’s.
hi! I am currently feeding my parakeets dr harvey’s but they seem to waste a lot of it. what is the best parakeet seed?
there are so many, i’m confused. they don’t like fresh veggies or fruit, so I would like a good overall food. i tried harrison’s pellets and they refuse to i eat it. thanks! Toni
Hi Toni
Unfortunately all seed diet are messy because of the hulls so you have the same problem regardless of the food brand.
Dr harvey’s is one of the best
Two simple things I would advocate.
Budgies are ground eaters in the wild (we have 4, we know budgies)
We keep our food dishes on the floor of the cage – we do not use a grate – we make sure the dishes are not under any poop trajectories.
This way much of the mess is contained within the floor of the cage
Millet is another issue and I deal with FI vacuuming seven days a week.
You may also try to use a seed skirt around the cage which you can find here
This is our budgie cage set up fyi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4yG7a3fsu0
best
mitchr
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