Ask Lafeber

Training a female budgie

Hiya, I bought a female budgie that is less than 4 months old just a week ago, and she’s already become very comfortable with us – she can climb onto your finger if you push her a little, and when we let her out of her cage, she flies around the room and sits on the curtain railing. She also eats from your hand and fingers, and now she’s started to even eat from your lips if you put the seed on the surface.

However, she chirps a lot when she’s on the curtain railing and it seems like she wants to get off and go somewhere else in the room, but she doesn’t want to fly off. Even if she does fly, she does a lap around the room then goes back to the other side of the curtain railing.

How can I train her to come down herself, or will this take quite some time? We’ve been speaking to her often since she’s by herself, but we’re planning to buy a male budgie for her very soon.

Sorry for the long question, and I hope you can help, we are very new to birds, this is our first one!

Hi,

You should not expect too much, too soon with training pet birds. You seem to have a good start, but take things slowly. I do not recommend letting her eat from your mouth. She could pick up bacteria that might not be harmful to you, but could make her sick. I’ll give you the links to our behavior and training pages for you to earn more about how to work with her. Also, if she is as young as they told you, it’s much to early to tell what sex she is. And depending on her color mutation, the cere color may or may not be an indication of gender.

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Teaching Your Bird

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda