Cranky Teenage Budgie

User Question
Hi Lisa, I just thought I'd give you an email telling you how helpful your website is to Turqoise and his human, Chris :). and if i'm not mistaken, don't you play lots of video games...and maybe Final Fantasy? :) Thanks for your time and your knowledge :)

Hi, it's Chris again, this time with an actual question. First of all, I should say that I was uninformed and underestimated what it takes to be a proper budgie owner. That isn't to say I'm neglecting my parakeet....on the contrary, I work really hard for him. I have most of the day to hang out with him, bring him out of his cage and do 'step-up' over and over in the bathroom, etc., so actually the bird takes up lots of my time now. Anyway, when I got Turqoise, I wasn't really thinking about his age. I am rather an instinctive person and picked the one that 'called out' to me, so to speak. Now I've come to realize that my budgie may already be in his 'cranky teenage' years, a month after I bought him. And of course he wasn't finger-trained. So I have a double-question: are there any secrets or tricks (other than the time honored 'patience' trick) that can help me develop a real bond with him?...and also, should I be drawing him out of his cage on a perch when he isn't tame yet, or should I just let him out so that he can have some more freedom?

Lisa's Answer
Yup I do have quite a large gaming site with Final Fantasy walkthroughs and such! But on to the parakeets ...

Really, the key to developing a bond with a parakeet (or with any living thing) is time and patience. You can never "make" someone or something like you. Parakeets are very intelligent and decide quite on their own who they can trust and who they can't. So the more you are with Turquoise, the more you spend time with him and are nice to him, the more he will look forward to being with you. The fact that you spend a ton of time with him is great! He will come to consider you part of his flock and want to be with you more and more.

So if you can, keep the cage near you whenever you're home, even in the bedroom with you at night. Talk to him a lot. It sounds like your parakeet is finger trained, so you can certainly take him out with you. I'm not sure what you mean when you say he isn't tame - if he's on your finger, he's pretty tame :) Definitely a bird should not be out of the cage if it is NOT finger trained, because if there ever was an emergency you need to be able to get the bird back into the cage quickly.

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