Taming And Training Your Budgie – A Beginner’s Guide

Taming Your Budgie Bird

STEP 1 –

Getting To Know You And Building A Budgies Trust

Spend time with your budgie in the same room as you usually spend the most time in.

Sit in the room next to the cage and just chill and do what you normally do.

Talk to your bird in a soft tone with a calm voice. Budgies like a high pitch tone. Your bird will be listening to you and exploring his new cage and toys at the same time.

Approach the cage and talk to your budgie repeating this step at least 10 times.

Go slowly up to the cage and say hello to your feathered friend. Observe its behaviours for stress.

The key to taming a bird is to be calm, use a gentle calm voice and be very patient as this process is the getting to know you stage.

Over time you will build trust as long as you don’t do any sudden movements with your hands.

Over the many days of feeding your bird, your Budgie will come closer and closer to you.

With patients, love and understanding your Budgie will be your best friend soon.

Approach the cage and talk to your budgie repeating this step at least 10 times.

STEP 2 –

Getting Comfortable With Your Budgie

Next, Slowly approach the cage and get familiar with each other by talking to your budgie and touching the outside of the cage with your hands gently. Touch the front and sides cage only.

• Touch the cage and talk to your budgie repeating this step at least 10 times until your bird is comfortable.

Touching the top of the cage may make your bird feel threatened. This is because in the wild, Budgies are always on alert from predators above them.

At first, your budgie will be wary of you and may retreat away from your hands. This is perfectly normal as we don’t want your bird to get spooked or bite you.

Budgies can bite and you may probably get a few warning nips. Try to be as calm as possible and don’t loose your cool.

STEP 3 –

Treat Training Your Budgie

Training a Budgie is rather easy and very rewarding for both of you. Never give up on training your new friend.

Just keep going, be persistent, be patient and allow your bird to make mistakes as it learns.

Feeding treats like millet is an excellent start to make a budgie come closer to you and feed from your hand.

Offering millet as a treat is the key to taming and training your budgie.

They love the stuff and will do anything to have a taste.

When you are replacing food or water, this is a good time to gauge how comfortable your bird is with your hand being in the cage.

• Grab a long sprig of millet or another treat. Every time you reach into the cage, have this treat in your hand.

You will not be feeding your bird this treat just yet. You are associating your hand with positive things.

• Next, hold the treat near your budgie

Do this at least 5 times repeating this step for 5-minute sessions.

Next Comes The Fun Part!

• Slowly and gently approach your budgie with the millet. Make sure it eats from your treat while on its perch.
• Make sure it eats from the treat about 10 times.
• With the millet still in your hand, move a little further away so your budgie has to reach out for the treat.

Be sure to repeat this step 10 times

STEP 4 –

Training your Budgie To Step Up

Your Budgie will step onto your finger just to get another taste of the treat. They are very inquisitive so they may even put one of their feet on your finger to start with.

If your bird is stepping onto your index finger reaching for the treat, this is called Step Up.

• Still holding onto the treat, extend your index finger slowly so your finger becomes a perch for your budgie to sit on.
• Hold the treat so your budgie has to hop on your finger to reach it.
• If your bird is coming to you and hopping onto your finger, give them praise with a calm voice.

If your Budgie is not hopping onto your finger you can use your index finger to hover over the birds’ feet to encourage it to step up.

You can also try and place your index finger just below its chest and gently push with your finger. Both of these Budgie tips will usually make a bird step up.

• Slowly move your finger back to the perch so your Budgie can step off your finger onto its perch.
• Hold out your finger again with the treat in your hand and this time, have your finger just out of its reach so your bird hops onto it.

When your bird is on your finger eating, you may try to pet your bird with your thumb if he/she allows you to.

• Pet your bird with your thumb while he is distracted eating the millet from your hand.

Be patient, speak softly, move slowly and your bird will trust you as part of its flock. Your Budgie is learning a lot and this new bond is starting to form between both of you.

Keep training your Budgie to Step Up at least 10 times in the cage.

Once you have succeeded at Step Up in the cage, It’s time to bring your bird out of the cage to eat its treat from from your hand.

• Stay close to the cage while doing this next step as your Budgie knows the cage is a safe place to go back to.
• Slowly open the cage door and leave it open.
• When the Budgie is on your finger and eating the treat, slowly move your hand toward the cage opening and out of the cage.
• At this stage you can put the millet in the palm of your hand and your Budgie will not be able to resist the tasty treat.

Its ok if your bird doesn’t feel comfortable and flies back into its cage. Just be patient and start trying again giving your friend a rest in between tries.

Before you know it, your pet parrot will be fully comfortable with you.

STEP 5 – 

Teach Your Budgie To Climb Stairs

Use The Step Up Technique.

• Using both hands, Make 2 perches with both index fingers.
• Get the Budgie to hop onto each finger stepping up to the next finger like a ladder. Repeat until your bird can do it sucessfully.

You Can Train A Budgie To Do Many Different Tricks

Including:

talking, playing with toys, singing, climbing stairs and flying to you.

The treat reward system is the fastest way to tame and train your budgie.

If you enjoyed this article about Budgies, please check out our other article on Budgies HERE.

See Below:

The Complete Guide to Budgie Care: How To Look After Your Pet Bird