Hand Training Four Parakeets at Once

User Question
hi i have 4 parakeets. 2 i had for about 9 months and the other 2 i just bought. 1 of the new parakeets is still a baby. i was wondering if i should take one bird out and hand train it or should i try to hand train all of the birds??? i was thinking of starting with 1 of the older keets and the baby i recently bought. please help me... thank you.... BY THE WAY YOUR KEETS WEBSITE IS GREAT!!

Lisa's Answer
Wow, talk about a challenge! These birds are definitely forming their own large flock and will think of you as an outsider. So you are going to have to make regular, patient efforts to in essence become a part of their flock instead of how it usually works, which is having the parakeet become a part of your human flock.

I wouldn't take the birds away from each other, that will cause them a lot of stress. They're all part of a group and parakeets who are isolated from a known group get very upset. I would work on hand training ALL of them at the same time, so they all see what is going on and are all a part of it. You don't want to work on some of them and ignore others of them. That would get very confusing. Concentrate on the two young ones because they will be the easiest to train, but work on the others too. Get them used to your hand in the cage, and then move on to the perch training. Work on each bird for a few minutes and then move on to the next bird. The birds should be watching as you do this to their friends and realize that this is not a harmful thing, it's just a new thing.

It'll probably take longer than usual to get your parakeets trained because they are all overcoming their flock mentality to do things with a human, but it should still work after a few weeks. Just keep at it. And make sure their cage is somewhere that you are most of the time and that they hear your voice a lot. The more you can do to remain a part of their normal day to day life, the more they will treat you as a flockmate and not as a random stranger that comes in with food.

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