Grabbing at Birds

User Question
Hi! I just wanted to tell you your website has been very informative.

I purchased two birds about two months ago. We were originally going to get one, but then decided it would be lonely and we should get two. I had a parakeet prior to these, but while I wasn't at home, it got out of it's cage (which it did often), and since no one wanted to play with him, he went in search of my mother, and followed her into a room as she was shutting the door. We took it to the vet, but it died shortly after.

Anyway, I've never had two birds before. My first bird was fairly easy to train. After about five months he was coming out of the cage regularly, interacting with everyone, trying to eat everything in site, eating food from my MOUTH (lol! gross!), and even letting me take him outside without trying to fly away.

These birds however have not been so easy to train. I'm almost positive that they're both male. They tend to fight a lot, but they've calmed down. They seem more content with the environment, especially since I moved them right by my desk, which is where I'm at most of the time.

One of the things I've noticed is that they are constantly knocking things down in their cages. I bought them two seperate food and water trays that would cling to the top so they didn't have to climb down everytime they wanted food. Now that's pretty much all they use unless there's no food in the smaller trays. (It runs out a lot.) The birds will frequently knock them down, even when they're full of food. I had to use twisty ties to attach them securely to the cage. After I did that, they started knocking their ladder down, and I did the same. After that, they started flipping their swing over, and I did the same with that. Just the other day I caught one of the birds flipping the ladder up and down trying to pull it off the cage, and ended up breaking two of the steps. Is there an explanation for that?

Here's another question. Neither of the birds will come out unless I grab them, but once out, one of my birds, Nacho, will stay on my finger. The other bird, Frank, will continuously try to fly away, causing Nacho to fly away as well (if he sees Frank do it.) If I put them both together on my finger, they'll stay but you can tell they're scared. Even if I coo and make pretty noises and talk to them, they still seem to be scared. Is there a way to fix that?

There is one more question that I have. I listen to a wide variety of music, ranging from Tori Amos to Cradle of Filth, and I want to know if there is any type of music that would bother them? I play a little Jewel for them everyday, and they appear to love it. They chirp along, fluff up, and get sleepy-eyed. However, if I play metal, they don't appear to be stressed, but they aren't fluffed up and they still chirp along.

Thanks for all your help! (Sorry this was so long.)

Lisa's Answer
Yikes, first off, NEVER grab a parakeet. A keet should come to you because he trusts you, NEVER because you force him to. Also a keet should never be taken out of his cage until he is finger trained, for safety reasons. So your first priority here should be to work on the finger training daily, until your keet voluntarily gets on your finger, and until your keet voluntarily comes out of his cage. Otherwise you are just asking for a disaster.

It sounds like your keets are playing with their items in the cage because it's what seems fun to them. Do you have toys and bells in there? Once you get the keets trained they can come out and play on a play gym, and use up all that energy in a more normal way. But until then, they really don't have much choice of what to play with in their cage, and just like all kids, they have a ton of pent up energy.

So your task as the owner is to get them fully finger trained, so they can come out and play on a play gym and release all that natural energy.

Finally, never, ever let a keet outside. Even the tamest of parakeets can get scared of a loud noise, fly off, and be lost forever - and probably be eaten and die.

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