Adopting Abused Budgies

Question
Hi! I was thinking of rescuing a pair of abused budgies. One of them is about 5 years old and is very scared of humans due to abuse. The second one is about 3 years old and hasn't been abused, but is extremely unsocialized (only handled once or twice in its life). How would I be able to get them used to people? Do you think they'd be able to become relatively tame (maybe perch on my finger)? And is it a good idea to separate the birds in different cages to get them more used to people, or would that just stress them out? Oh, and this would be one of my first experiences owning birds, so do you think it would be too much of a challenge for a beginner?

Answer
Sunny,

As a beginner, I would strongly advise you against adopting birds that are not hand tamed, unless you are not specifically looking for hand tamed birds. I have roughly 25+ years of bird keeping expierence, and I find it difficult to hand tame birds that are not hand tamed/handfed from a very young age, when they are baby birds. I just do not have the time or patience to take on such a task. Plus if they were abused and neglected, these birds are cutting very close to their maximum age, you would likely have 2 dead parakeets in just a year or two, TOPS! So just about the time you get them use to human contact, they will likely expire. Of course, you will have to judge from your level of comfort if you want to take on the task.


Best of luck!