Four Birds at Once

User Question
First off, I love your site!

Here is my situation. I have 2 1 1/2 year old female budgies and I just got 2 more budgies. Sadie was hand trained by the store manager and Zoey is just a little sweetie that has caught on really fast. But Sadie seems very much more reluctant now to get on our hands and runs away while Zoey pretty much alway jumps onto our fingers or a stick. I don't get it.

Our first 2 birds are not hand trained very well. Lily just never took to us and Maggie and stick trained as long as she gets to be in front of her favorite mirror. Lily and Maggie fly. Zoey and Sadie don't yet because I had their wings clipped.

My questions:

1. Do you think that Sadie is getting distracted with Lily and Maggie and picking up their bad habits or is she suddenly afraid of us?

2. I would really love to hand train Lily and Maggie and I have read your instructions. Should I clip their wings like the other two? Will they be more teachable and trusting or will I break thier spirits? The last thing I want would be to break their hearts by taking something so important away, but I want to have a deeper relationship with the two of them.

Right at the moment I have 2 cages- one with Lily and Maggie and one with Zoey and Saddie. Do I try to separate them all when I am training them?

One thing I didn't mention- Saddie is fine when she gets on my finger- she does make a run for the cage with Lily and Maggie, but so does Zoey. I let them play all together only for little bits of time otherwise there are different play times for everyone and I know that you already know this, but it gets a bit noisy with them all not living together =). All of them saying, "Come over here! No you come here!" =) I love to here them and I am glad they are getting along. Maggie is my little bully and Lily is my thinker still learning to stand up for herself and getting better at it. Saddie is a cuddler and loves to just ride on your shoulder and be with you and Zoey- well she is still a baby and curious about everything and everyone with no one.

Got any advice? I think that we just gave in to much with Maggie and her tantrums when we were training her and Lily- I don't know. She has never really wanted anything to do with any human. We are kind to them, but I think we need some parenting advice.

Thank you and again- thank you for your site! My husband and are out here a lot.

Lisa's Answer
It sounds like you really have your hands full! All parakeets are quite unique, just like human beings. If you took four people - even from the same family - they often are very different in personality. I would definitely work on hand training all four of them, but not clip their wings. There's no reason to have to clip wings in order to train a bird. I wouldn't separate them - that would cause them more stress and have them focus less on the training.

I have the training information here -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_hand.html

so just work through it slowly and patiently, but remember that you are the flock leader. You always have to gentle but firm - you're the one in control.

All Questions in this Category

List of Parakeet Question Categories

NOTE: Because of the huge volume of incoming questions, I no longer answer them one by one. Instead, we have created a live, free Parakeet Forum which is very active, where people are online 24 hours a day to help you with your parakeet related questions. If you have any questions about parakeet care - or simply want to share your parakeet stories and photos - please join us!

Parakeet Forum