All about the bird: parakeets
Millet and Patience: 2 key ingredients to finger training your budgie
All you need to train a budgie to step up onto your finger or a stick is millet and patience.
Start by holding it out to them in their cage and just let them get used to your hands. They will be very wary and scared at first but after a while they will see that your hand is a good and non-scary thing and will not eat them!
Each time you come into the room stop by their cage and talk to them in a soft happy voice. Tell them how pretty they are and how glad you are they have come to live in your home.
Sing to them. Budgies really really love this. Talk to them while you change their cage papers and give them new clean water and food. Each day when you give them millet, get your hand a little closer to them.
Eventually, let your hand touch them while they eat. Then try slipping a finger under the millet and press gently against their belly till they have to step up on your finger. Then have them get onto your hand every time you come with the millet.
I just got 2 baby english budgies a couple weeks ago (Sugar and Plums - see picture). Now they run to the cage door when I come in the room. They eagerly climb onto my hand for the millet and even let me pet their wings and skritch their heads while they pig out. They are not yet too keen on getting on my finger if I don't have millet but if I place my hand on the bottom of the cage without moving it, they will crawl into it without fear.
My next steps will be getting them to step up on command without millet and also stick training.
It's important that all budgies be stick trained so you can get them back into the cage in case of an emergency. Stick training follows the same steps as getting a budgie to step up onto your finger (millet and patience). It's often easier to stick train budgies first, before finger training them because they are less afraid of the stick. However, it's a piece of cake to get budgies to step up onto a stick if they are already stepping up on fingers.
- Lake, webmaster
All you need to train a budgie to step up onto your finger or a stick is millet and patience.
Start by holding it out to them in their cage and just let them get used to your hands. They will be very wary and scared at first but after a while they will see that your hand is a good and non-scary thing and will not eat them!
Each time you come into the room stop by their cage and talk to them in a soft happy voice. Tell them how pretty they are and how glad you are they have come to live in your home.
Sing to them. Budgies really really love this. Talk to them while you change their cage papers and give them new clean water and food. Each day when you give them millet, get your hand a little closer to them.
Eventually, let your hand touch them while they eat. Then try slipping a finger under the millet and press gently against their belly till they have to step up on your finger. Then have them get onto your hand every time you come with the millet.
I just got 2 baby english budgies a couple weeks ago (Sugar and Plums - see picture). Now they run to the cage door when I come in the room. They eagerly climb onto my hand for the millet and even let me pet their wings and skritch their heads while they pig out. They are not yet too keen on getting on my finger if I don't have millet but if I place my hand on the bottom of the cage without moving it, they will crawl into it without fear. My next steps will be getting them to step up on command without millet and also stick training.
It's important that all budgies be stick trained so you can get them back into the cage in case of an emergency. Stick training follows the same steps as getting a budgie to step up onto your finger (millet and patience). It's often easier to stick train budgies first, before finger training them because they are less afraid of the stick. However, it's a piece of cake to get budgies to step up onto a stick if they are already stepping up on fingers.
- Lake, webmaster
