New baby help please!

[bridmann]

Hi everyone!

About a month ago, I became the new owner of 2 male parakeets. Tito never had a problem coming out of the cage and has always seemed rather comfortable with me. Cobalt is much shyer and it took me about a week and a half to get him out of the cage for the first time. I got them from a breeder right after they were weened and hand trained. I read online that it is harder to bond when you own two instead of one. I have a couple of questions.

About 3 weeks ago, Tito occasionally started to bite, sometimes hard. I know I am supposed to try not to react, which I have started doing. However, he doesn't seem aggressive or mean about it, but is there a way for me to get him to stop biting? He doesn't always do it, but sometimes he bites too hard and it's difficult to bond with him outside of the cage.

Cobalt, on the other hand, has never even attempted to bite me. However, sometimes he will just try to fly away and will avoid me at all costs. How do I get him to bond with me without scaring him?

I try to give them treats, but they won't eat them. If anyone has any tips for first time owners trying to raise two parakeets at once, I would love your input. Thanks everybody!

 

[2budgies]

I we bought two budgies at the same time from a pet store..... which means they were even more freaked out! we were having bonding issues with both, but one more then the other... here are a couple of things that have worked for us. ( in less then two weeks both are stepping up and our male (wall-e) has been doing very well with touch training.

1. Try doing your bonding time with the cage out of the birds site. We were having a hard time because both birds always wanted to return to the safety of their cage ASAP. to help we bought them a couple of "exercise" or bird gym set ups and put them in a small room that we set aside for bonding time. ( make sure to cover windows and mirrors at first if they get freaked out they can hurt themselves flying into such things).

2. We found it easier to make progress with both birds if they were given bonding time away from each other. At first each bird was given 30 minutes alone with us, and we just talked to them and got them used to us being around them, then started "step up" and things of that nature. Always with millet as a reward. After each bird had 30 minutes ( or which ever works better for you) then we would put both birds together in the room we were using for bonding. One bird will learn from the other and watch how you interact. Our bird that was more shy watched our braver bird and we made alot of progress....

3. If you are offering treats for "step up" and to train.... don't leave any in the cage offer it for your interaction time. If the birds don't get the millet when they are alone they will be much more interested in it when you are offering it. I hope that some of this is a help to you.

 

[2budgies]

also.... If they are scared of you when they are out of the cage, try to get them more used to you being around. Keep them in the cage ( with the door open ) while you read, or watch tv, play music for them... sing to them even! the more they see you and hear you they will think you are part of the flock!! also try offering millet or favorite treat thru the cage, door open with a flat hand that way they don't have the anxiety of having to come out of the cage and will get used to you being so close. eventually they will let you take them right out with not problems..... but like i said sometimes the cage is the main point of anxiety. you can purchase exercise areas for very cheap from any petstore .

 

[bridmann]

Thank you, those are really helpful do you have any idea what to do about the biting by any chance? I thought Tito would've grown out of it by now but he hasn't:/

 

[2budgies]

I haven't ran into a biting problem. It could be due to nervousness (sp?) due to contact.... Try taking back the contact you are having with him for a while. He might need to feel a higher comfort level.... but you are wise NOT to react when he bites... because that will def. NOT be good to progress I'll do some more research on that and get back to you on the biting.

 

[lene1949]

Birds are actually very intelligent, and you can teach your bird to be gentle... You must show/tell the bird that the biting hurts, and then say gentle, when he stops, and then good boy/girl...

This is not something you only do once or twice, you do it thousands of times...

 

[LoveMyParrots]

Does your budgie give you any warning before he is gonna bite? Like opening his beak etc?

 

[bridmann]

Not really, he's really quick with it, and I can't tell if he's doing it to hurt me intentionally.