how to tame my budgie

Question
hi, i have a new budgie.I have had her for about 2 weeks.We have made some taming progress but not much.She will hop on my finger fine but they hop right off onto her perch again.Can you give me some taming methods and tips so i can speed up the process.I have asked other people and they say to take her(grab her) out of her cage and handle her as much as possible.But i don't want to freak her out because i have tried when she was on my finger to take her out of her cage but she hops off again.Can i get some tips and different methods? thanks!

Answer
Hi again, Sarah.

I saw your note in your rating of my response.  I did give you some tips for starting out to work with your budgie.  I advised you to give the bird a chance to settle down first, i.e., get used to it's new environment and you, prior to trying to work with your new bird.  I also recommended after this settling down period that you allow your bird to come out of it's cage on it's own versus taking your bird out of it's cage when you want to work with the bird.  I also recommended you become more knowledgeable about parrot behavior, etc., so you have the knowledge in order to be able to work with your bird (if you don't know what you're doing, you can't teach your bird).

I figured once you got past the above, you'd contact me in order to know what to do next.  It's only been a week!  

When you want to work with your bird, take your bird into a neutral room (away from it's cage where there are minimal disruptions, allowing your bird to come out of it's cage on it's own).  Place the bird down and just interact with your bird...talk with your bird, try the "step up" and "step down" commands (getting your bird on/off your finger), play with your bird, etc.  You can only work with your bird for as long as you have your bird's attention, which might only be a minute or two at a time.  Once you've lost your bird's attention/focus, you'll need to stop the training session and start again later.  It helps to keep a bird's wing flight feathers clipped during this time so the bird can't fly up and away from you every time you want to work with the bird.

Another method could be keeping the bird's cage door open while you are playing on the PC, watching TV, etc., and just let your bird come out and sit next to you/on your shoulder and watch what you are doing.  

Your goal through all of this is to gain your bird's trust.  A bird who trusts it's human will allow it's human to do just about anything with the bird.  

It's really difficult to provide methods when I have no idea of your lifestyle or set up with your bird, how your bird is reacting to what I've recommended, etc.  If you knew more about birds, this would be easy for you to understand!

Take it slow and progress at the bird's pace...not the pace with which you want things to proceed.  You can't speed this process up.

Chrys
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Hi, Sarah.  Thanks for posting!

If you've only had this bird for 2 weeks, is s/he settled down enough already to be working with the bird to begin with?  You can't tame/train 2 birds together at the same time.  You will need to take one bird you want to work with into a different room where the bird can't see/get to the other bird or get to it's cage.  Then you need to work with each bird individually.  If you try to work with these birds together, they will follow each other's actions (good or bad) and not focus on what you want them to focus on.  

You can't speed up this process.  You have to work with these birds at the bird's pace.  You can try to urge them on to the next step, but you can't force them to hurry up and become tamed/trained!  In addition, you have to know what you are doing if you want the bird's to react positively.  In other words, do you have knowledge of how parrot's behave, what makes them tick, etc., etc.?  If not, you need to educate yourself first before you can work with your budgies.  

It's best if you allow your birds to come out of their cage first before working with them.  Their cages are their territory, their personal space, their safety zones and you need to respect this.  Do not grap your birds up and bring them out of their cage.  You need to build a trusting relationship with your birds.

Chrys