Posted May 11, 200619 yr Hi guys! I went wandering the net to find some info on budgies but I ended up spending a couple of hours reading all your stories... great forum! Last Christmas we bought a baby budgie from the local petshop, we were extremely lucky to find a great petshop and did alot of checking up to make sure (we've been burned before from being sold an adult bird and promised it was a baby). This time they hand tamed it before we picked him up so he'd let you pick him up without a problem and no biting. He's had his wings clipped since he was tiny and he was never let out of the cage before we bought him so he hasn't flown hardly at all. Here he is, this is Stitch named after the little blue monster in Lilo and Stitch of course He's now just starting to grow his wing feathers back and you can see the difference in his confidence. But he's developing .. shall we say .. idiosyncrasies that are getting weirder and weirder and I'm not sure if they're just normal budgie behaviour or how to train him out of it. Biting He does sort of nibbles which I gather are more just sort of tasting but occassionally he bites the kids if they don't hold their finger in the right place for him to hop on. He also likes to bite (Hard!) on the tips of my fingernails, occasionally he misses and ends up biting on the very tips of my fingers. I dunno if this is some kind of grooming or something? He doesn't seem to do that to anyone else but me Teething He chews anything and everything .. I'm sure he's teething just like the kids did. I take it this is pretty normal but is there a way to stop it? He mainly likes chewing his own feet which is a worry, and he has a playpen made from wood that he likes chewing the corners of and the perches of course. Obsessive Compulsive He won't allow anything in his playpen or his cage. Every day he meticulously checks for feathers or anything and one by one picks them up and throws them off the side of his cage to the floor. This would be fine if it was just feathers but he does this with anything we put in there, toys, apple, bread, special foods etc. anything that isn't fixed to the cage. Imaginary Friends He talks to anything, perches, posts in his playpen, even his shadow in the evenings but whenever we attach the toy parts to the playpen he gets quite aggressive and protective. It came with a little red ball but when it's attached he won't let anyone get near that half of the play pen at all so we took it off and he calmed down. Is this just a seasonal thing? I know it's recommended if you want your budgie tame not to put any mirrors near him but are there any recommended toys? He seems quite happy most of the time but occassionally a little bored and it's not possible to get him a friend at the moment. Over Achiever I've been trying for a while to get him to fly to my finger when I call .. you guys call this 'stepping up'? I thinK? It's been tough because I don't think he knew he could fly for quite a while. Then one day he was scared by a bird outside and flew a fair way across the room, crash landed on the floor and sat there for a minute with a shocked expression "how did I get here?". Slowly he's been getting more control over the flying and now he's pretty good. He's been doing what I'd call 'stepping up' for a long time, if you hold your finger close enough to him to walk onto it or touch it with his beak he'll do that everytime no problem. What I wanted him to do was fly further and land on my finger and yesterday he began doing just that. Which is great! But the problem here is I taught him that before I read the forum. I didn't think at the time about budgies responding to food rewards because he doesn't eat anything other than seed and seed bells (I know that's probably bad but see previous 'OCD' problem). So anyway now he's figured out he can fly across and land on people.. umm... this might sound stupid but how do I make him stop? He's become adept at 'flybys' zooming just a tiny bit above people's heads which is most disconcerting. Is there a trick to get him to only 'step up' when you call? Maybe this part just needs more practice. He's having fun though, he doesn't talk yet but he has a definite laugh, so he's begun a habit of zooming over people and then sitting on his cage and laughing at them it's fine now but heaven help him if he does it to my mother in law! Overall we're having great fun and he's proving a great pet for our kids (they're 8 and 10 years old) they're learning heaps about responsibility and how to treat animals and even the die-hard dog lover in the household (i.e. me) is having a great time. Cheers, Mandie
May 11, 200619 yr I'm sorry, i had to laugh at some of those behaviours! Stitch certainly seems to be full of personality! The biting sounds pretty normal, most budgies will bite from time to time and the nibbling is a bit like preening. It's affectionate. The chewing, well that's also a budgie thing! Right this second my two are chewing away, Blinkie at my necklace and Ozzie at the blinds. The obsesive compulsive is a bit peculiar. Blinkie will throw those jingly balls off the side of his gym and loves trying to unhook toys in his cage but he doesn't get picky about it and try to remove everything, hopefully someone else will have some more helpful advice. I think the talking to anything and everything is a single male budgie thing. I had Blinkie on his own for a year and he flirts with/talks to absolutely EVERYTHING, it's quite embarrassing actually when he flirts with fingers, toes, carrots, spoons, shadows, bells, etc. You can change his cage around once a week to try to stop that, by changing his cage around he'll be kept more occupied. "Flybys", fun aren't they. My Blinkie does this all the time and as far as i can figuire there's not a huge amount you can do to stop it. I'm working on clicker training him to hopefully make him more obedient. You can read about clicker training in the Budgie Behaviour forum. Hopefully this has helped answer some questions. Welcome to the forums by the way!
May 11, 200619 yr Hi and welcome to the forum. Here he is, this is Stitch named after the little blue monster in Lilo and Stitch of course I love the name Biting He does sort of nibbles which I gather are more just sort of tasting but occassionally he bites the kids if they don't hold their finger in the right place for him to hop on. He also likes to bite (Hard!) on the tips of my fingernails, occasionally he misses and ends up biting on the very tips of my fingers. I dunno if this is some kind of grooming or something? He doesn't seem to do that to anyone else but me When he bites you do not react to it, or he'll think it's a game, just pretend its not happening. Usuallu soft bites, like when he bites the kids if they don't hold their finger in the right position for hinm to hop on are actually just to help him climb. If you watch him climb around his cage, heill use his beak as a "third limb". Teething He chews anything and everything .. I'm sure he's teething just like the kids did. I take it this is pretty normal but is there a way to stop it? He mainly likes chewing his own feet which is a worry, and he has a playpen made from wood that he likes chewing the corners of and the perches of course. Are you sure that when he chews his feet he isn't just preening them? Because budgies do this all the time. if it looks like he is doing it hard then it might pay to visit an avian vet, because he could have mites that could cause itching. Budgies naturally chew wood and things to keep their beaks from growing too long as the chewing grinds it down. My budgies have chewed their play gym quite a bit too. Obsessive Compulsive He won't allow anything in his playpen or his cage. Every day he meticulously checks for feathers or anything and one by one picks them up and throws them off the side of his cage to the floor. This would be fine if it was just feathers but he does this with anything we put in there, toys, apple, bread, special foods etc. anything that isn't fixed to the cage. Yes I would say do what Bea said, rearrange his cage and cycle his toys around, so that he doesn't get territorial My budgies for some reason, like to pick their poos off of the perches and one of them once piled them all up in a corner Imaginary Friends He talks to anything, perches, posts in his playpen, even his shadow in the evenings but whenever we attach the toy parts to the playpen he gets quite aggressive and protective. It came with a little red ball but when it's attached he won't let anyone get near that half of the play pen at all so we took it off and he calmed down. Is this just a seasonal thing? I know it's recommended if you want your budgie tame not to put any mirrors near him but are there any recommended toys? He seems quite happy most of the time but occassionally a little bored and it's not possible to get him a friend at the moment. This, like Bea said, is classic boy behaviour. They especially love to bop their toys and sing to them. This is what they would do to a female budgie if she was in the cage, a kind of courting behaviour. Even though my budgie has a girlfriend he still does it to his toys and my other boy flirts with his cage bars Over Achiever So anyway now he's figured out he can fly across and land on people.. umm... this might sound stupid but how do I make him stop? He's become adept at 'flybys' zooming just a tiny bit above people's heads which is most disconcerting. Is there a trick to get him to only 'step up' when you call? Maybe this part just needs more practice. He's having fun though, he doesn't talk yet but he has a definite laugh, so he's begun a habit of zooming over people and then sitting on his cage and laughing at them it's fine now but heaven help him if he does it to my mother in law! Yes my budgie loves to dive bomb me too. It's fun.... for them. If you only want them to step up when you call you only reward him when he does what you want. However because he wants to do it for fun rather than treats he'll keep doing it any way. One of the perks of budgies. I personally liove it when Arkady does this, because it means he is playing with me. Also seed bells are not good for budgies as they are saturated with honey which is high in sugar content. You are better off with buying a good quality seed mix and trying :(Laughing out loud): to give him fresh food.
May 11, 200619 yr you have awesome advice, just to add it can be a hormones due to he is older and well instintually they will want to mate. I have always rearranged Pretty's toys and he gets attached to his toy plastic balls trying to feed them, beat them and then talk to them so I move them around and at times completely take them out for a few days. Giving them less daylight will help too make sure he is covered for at least 12 hours for sleep, the longer the days are their body is telling them it is mating season. . He is a cute!!
May 11, 200619 yr Wonderful advice everyone! Honestly, it just sounds like normal budgie behavior to me. My bird Cuddles did all of that (except the throwing everything out of the cage, but that just seems like he's quite particular about his surroundings. He's a NEAT FREAK!!) I would just sit back and enjoy that you have a bird with such a personality and is so much fun. Laugh at what he does and take it with a grain of salt. As for biting the kids though, i would say to really try to teach your kids where to put their fingers. My Cuddles even bit me sometimes if he wasn't "in the mood" for some lovin. Good luck to you!!
May 11, 200619 yr Is your budgie a VIRGO by any chance ??!! My fiance IS a VIRGO and he vacuums the aviaries, the footpaths to the aviaries, washes the birdie poop off the frangipani leaves and puts floormats and doormats to every door into and out of the aviaries and bird rooms. : by my standards...sometimes he goes a little overboard. Maybe your budgie is like him.....a Virgo ( sorry Lovey ) ?? Edited May 11, 200619 yr by budgiebird
May 11, 200619 yr Hi Thanks for all the great advice and the huge welcome!! It's great to get reassurance that I haven't sent this poor birdy psycho somehow. Bea - it was your post about the clicker I was reading about 'stepping up' (great videos too!) Sailorwolf - thanks for all the advice. I think you're right I need to get the right perspective on the dive bombing that it's really a good thing that he wants to play and it shows he's happy. With the biting thing I try not to yell but I don't know that ignoring it completely is a good idea either, I've been trying the classic child discipline trick of a 'time out', putting him in his cage with the door shut for a few minutes then letting him back out when he calms down. The 'third limb' thing you said I knew but it's not that, he's usually in his playpen which is quite high up on top of his cage which is on a stand, so when the kids put their fingers up to him it's usually about the height of the top of their heads and that's a bit of a balancing act, the bite he does then is a short lunge and snap type of thing. The more I think of it though I'm thinking if we teach him the stepping up properly this won't be a problem anymore because he'll only fly to them when he's happy and when he wants to play. The feet chewing I've had a look and he doesn't seem to have done any damage to them so it must just be preening, I'll keep an eye on it, something tells me he might have been a little sick when we brought him home, he's not sneezing or chewing his feet so much lately. Thanks for the info about the bells, he does go a little like a kid on red cordial when we give him those so now I know why! I've been reading more on the forums about the food so I'm going to try bigger pieces of different fruit/veges and attaching them to the cage somehow. lovey - thanks for the info! I didn't know about the 12 hours sleep thing and I need to get him a cover, with the weather being so hot up here in Qld over summer I wasn't game to cover him but I'm not sure that was the right thing to do, I've been making sure he has enough quiet to sleep but I didn't think about the season part of it. karma-k - the mood thing is a good point, hopefully the stepping up training will also fix that too. budgiebird - I don't think he's a virgo .. we picked him up at xmas so I'd have thought he'd be a sagittarius or a capricorn .. maybe a scorpio? BUT my husband is a gemini and shows the same tendencies as your fiance .. maybe it's a bloke thing? Hey maybe they're all snags! (sensitive new age guys that is). Thanks again for all the great advice You guys have a great community here! I've learnt alot and got alot of great ideas (next thing on the shoppinglist is a hamster wheel!) Cheers! Mandie
May 11, 200619 yr The 'third limb' thing you said I knew but it's not that, he's usually in his playpen which is quite high up on top of his cage which is on a stand, so when the kids put their fingers up to him it's usually about the height of the top of their heads and that's a bit of a balancing act, the bite he does then is a short lunge and snap type of thing. The more I think of it though I'm thinking if we teach him the stepping up properly this won't be a problem anymore because he'll only fly to them when he's happy and when he wants to play. That just made me think... have you tried putting his playgym a bit lower down. If he's higher than your kids' eyelevel then he's going to think that he's in charge and that he can drive off the annoying fingers by pecking at them. It's a dominance and possession thing that some budgies do if they don't quite no where they are in the pecking order. They need to be high enough to feel secure, but not so high as to feel dominant. Don't forget, budgies are arrogant little buggers, so it's not difficult for them to get the idea that they're the ones in charge, especially over small children with curious little fingers.
May 12, 200619 yr Careful about putting him back into his cage when he bites. Because he may bite you when he wants to go back in his cage, and thus you would be rewarding him for his behaviour. In fact if it is a real bad, search for the topic Nasty Boy and you will find another method of controlling biting. Actually I think I'll make that into a proper post.
May 12, 200619 yr I'll keep that in mind Sailorwolf, thanks again for the advice :ausb: Janette, I never thought of that and you're right he's higher up than them pretty much all the time, I'll have to think about that some more, maybe shift his playpen somewhere else now he's flying more often.
May 16, 200619 yr About the OC neat freak thing... Maybe he just likes to play dropsies? I know that Bijou LOOOOVES throwing his little foot toys and whatever else he can pick up and carry off of his play gym, cage table, if he's sitting at the computer... he LOVES throwing things and watching them fall to the floor. It's really quite amusing. Maybe your birdie is just playing dropsies with his toys and feathers. Bijou also plays with his feathers. A little off topic but could be fun... If he loses a downie feather when you have him out, blow it up into the air right above him. I guarentee he will love watching it float down and will try to get it when it comes close to him. I do this with Bijou a lot and it's really cute. Sounds like you just have a happy budgie with loads of personality! Congrats!
May 18, 200619 yr Hiyas :hap: I just wanted to leave a little update to let you all know what an amazing change the forum and advice has made. The biting has almost completely stopped which was the main thing that was annoying. The kids now don't go near his cage so much as stand back and call him and he flys to them. The fingernail biting thing he was doing has almost completely stopped apart from if he gets too excited or too bored. Millet is a wonder food! I bought some little millet heads, began with using it as a sort of training reward but then put the leftover pieces on his cage attached with a plastic peg, he was so loving the millet he forgot to be scared of the peg! So after that I tried a few more things attached to the peg and we've had quite a bit of success with pieces of green beans split lengthways, apple and carrot. The only problem there though was the first time I didn't really expect him to eat the bean, when I went to check half of it had been gnawed off and I think the water content affected him a bit. The stepping up training is coming along well, most of the time he'll come when called and about half of the time he'll go back to his cage when you tell him too, we're working on a 'stay' command which is pretty much completely being ignored at the moment. We got some extra toys to try and fix the territorial thing which seems to work better, little jingly balls to throw around. The only other thing we've had to change is his routine. He used to get let out of his cage when the kids woke up (we have flyscreens on every window and I work from home so he has the run of the house all day). After an interesting breakfast time of a certain budgie entertaining the kids he now gets let out after they leave for school .. did you know spilt (dry) corn flakes make good budgie toys? Stitch thinks so! Thanks again for the advice :hap: Mandie
June 15, 200619 yr Hi Mandie, Stitch is very pretty and sounds like fun!! Very well trained too by the way. I just thought i would let you know to be careful if Stitch has free run of cage and house, Peckers cage was always open and he could come and go as he pleased but be careful and make sure he doesnt chew holes in your flyscreens, Pecker was working on 2 holes so we always had to have the windows 1/2 shut coz one hole got big enough for him to squeeze through. So make sure hes not trying to escape flyscreens don't always keep them in.
June 15, 200619 yr thanks for the headsup! I guess we're lucky though he rarely goes to the windows he got out once when he was only just getting his flight feathers back and has been completely scared of the outside ever since, we have alot of other birds around here and mostly nasty ones like butcherbirds.
June 17, 200619 yr A couple of months ago Stitch hadn't grown his flight feathers back so we had his cage sort of near our front door because that's the sunniest part of the house and he loved it there. My hubby and kids were getting ready to ride their bikes to school and they were getting their helmets on which always scares him, someone dropped a helmet which made a bang at the same time the door was open and we didn't realise half his flight feathers had grown enough for him to fly a fair distance. So he flew off in a panic straight out the front door and into some really big trees in the next door neighbors front garden. Luckily his feathers hadn't grown enough for him to travel any great distances but he also didn't have any confidence with flying and he had a habit of flying when he was scared and then after landing not moving at all. So it took a while firstly to figure out where he was (I could hear little tweets but only every now and then and he'd landed on the other side of the tree from our house) and once I could actually see him he sort of climbed back towards me (nibbling tree branches and leaves etc on the way). All the time other birds were circling him and not in a friendly way so when he got close to me he jumped on my hand and wouldn't let go again in a hurry. All the time I'm standing out the front of my neighbors house (who we don't get along with at all) and other neighbors were leaving to go to work etc and stopping as they went past to ask if I was okay talking to a tree (Laughing out loud) You know that saying if you love something set it free .. I guess this all means he really REALLY wants to live here (Laughing out loud)
