Budgie Walks on the floor?

[Livy]

So im pretty much beat on how to discourage this, my male Budgie Dee loves to walk on the floor and even when I discourage it (telling him no, treating him with millet when he gets off the floor etc) he still does it! He lives in my room and im worried he will eat something. My floors are fairly clean but he still manages to find stuff sometimes.. Is this just something I gotta live with or do they grow out of it? (He legit runs around the floor hopping etc its rlly cute but I cant do my work while he's out of cage anymore because im so worried)
Thanks, Liv

 

[noodles123]

Have you tried station training + target training? If he is obsessed with the floor, you could possibly create a scripted routine in which you allow him to go only the floor but only when you say certain words and put him there etc. That way, he still gets to go, but not just whenever he feels like it (due to the safety hazards you mentioned).

It probably would also help if you enriched his life a bit by getting him more comfortable with the rest of the home (if/when it can be done safely). You might start by getting him a playstand and introducing him to it from afar and slowly while it is still in your room. Once he is comfortable on it and thinks it is his, if you move it to another point in the house (not with him on it lol) then he may be more comfortable if he already views it as safe and familiar.


If the floor is made of carpet and you have some extra, you could attach it to a platform and allow him to dig around on it when supervised, but carpet glues and fibers can be dangerous, so just make sure that whatever you do is safe.

If the floor is very shadowy, they also are inclined to seek out darker spaces as a form of nesting behavior...so it could be a foraging instinct or it could be hormonal etc--- do your best to keep him out of shadowy spaces (in and around the cage).



They are seed-foraging types in the wild, so I am sure he is drawn to the floor...Could you rig some sort of play space with sides that isn't unsafe or shadowy but still lower so that he feels like he is doing what he needs to do?