housing,feeding,taming

Question
Hello I have four budgies that arent all that tame, I know they will never be as tame as a single budgie would but I would like to be able to get them on my finger at lest so that I could take them out of there cage to play. Could you tell me how I would do this?

How big should there cage be? I will be making a 3x2x2 foot cage next month but was wondering if that would be big enough?

Also they are eating hagen seeds, pretty bird pellets & kaytee forit diet(with the little pellets in it), I would like to put them on just the kaytee forit diet with the small pellets in it would this be ok?

thank you for any help in advance.

Answer
Hi,
thank you for your question.
The cage you plan to buy is big enough if the birds are allowed to fly free for several hours every day and have a playground outside their cage where they can sit (for example a huge branch with toys).
If you cannot let them fly, they will need a cage that is at least twice as big.

Before you feed your birds, offer them some food in your hand. This is best done outside the cage or at least in front of the open door. You shouldn't put your hand in the cage unless you have to because the birds need to feel safe inside their cage.  The birds will be hungry and will probably come and eat from your hand. If they don't do so, give them their food anyway and try again next day. Eventually they will eat from and sit on your hand. When they all come readily to you, try and hold you hand a small way from the cage so that they have to fly to reach it or move your hand gently with the birds sitting on it.

Another good method is the Clicker method. I'm no expert on this, but there are a lot of good books you can buy on this. Most of those books deal with dogs, but it's a good method for birds, too. I've heard of many successful tamings involving this method on various bird boards.

It is okay to feed them just the Kaytee diet if you offer them fruits or vegetables on a daily basis. No brand of bird seeds is sufficient as the only food. You can offer your birds chickweed, apple, pear, zucchini, dandelion, grassseeds, twigs and leaves from birch, beech, hazel or oak, parsley, basil, nasturtium, mango, melon, chard (mangold) ect. Avocado is poisonous for birds.

There's an easy test to make sure the bird seeds are fresh: put a spoonful into warm water for eight hours and then pour off the water and wait for the seeds to germinate. If they do so in 24 hours, the food is fresh. You can feed the birds the germinated seeds but this food might spoil quickly and shouldn't be left in the cage for more than a few hours.
I hope this was of some help to you
Jennifer