I've found a way that really works for me, on taming my birds. Aviary birds, cage birds, young and even a few years old, it seems to work for the lot.

I figured I'd write it out here for any of you who want to know another way to tame your birds, I hope it helps.

This is for cage birds, same principle with aviary birds however..it seems to work a whole lot faster for avairy birds, as as soon as one is brave enough to try a new thing, they all do.

 

1- Once you get the new bird home, in its cage etc..leave it alone. Change food and water of course (moving soo slowly, stopping whenever he starts to panic/fly around, and starting to move again once he calms down.) and sit by the cage talking to him softly a lot, and make sure..above all, move slowly around him for the first while.

 

2- Once he seems to be getting used to you changing the food and water--ie, staying on the perch he was on, not moving off it to get further away from you--try this: When it is due for you to change the food again, get the filled seed dish, and hold it in front of him. Moving slowly, and though you are holding it make sure your hands are as little visible as possible, and hold it away from your body. It may take a few days to a week for him to do anything, but just persevere. Hold the container in front of him (do not chase him around with it though, put it in front of him..if he moves, keep the dish still) for about 15-30 minutes each day. He will soon peer at it intently

reach down and tentavely take a seed or two

then start eating, making sure both feet are still on the perch for a quick getaway and looking up frequently. Do not move the dish at all at this point, make sure to keep still until he has had his fill.

Then he will slowly get more comfortable with this, and even put a foot on the dish, even two. You may have to veery slowly move the dish away from the perch a bit so he has to put his feet on to eat more comfortably instead of streching. You can now put your hand around the dish so he is virtually standing on your hand to get to the food.

 

3- Once he is comfortable with this, and does not panic anymore when you put your hand in the cage, and does not hesitate when you put the dish in front of him...Try this next step. Put a lot of his favourite seeds on your hand (have your hand flat) and put it very slowly up in front of him. As when you did it with the dish, stay still and do not push him to do anything. Let him take this at his own pace. Do this every day, and he will eventaully start eating, put one foot on, then two.

 

4- You can then sloowly move your hand towards the entrance of the cage. He might hop off at this point..just stop, move your hand a little closer, and let him get back on. After a while he may let you take him out of the cage on your hand.

 

5- Depending on how okay he is with all this, you can now take him out of the cage and let him play a bit outside. To get him back in, put seed on your hand, etc. After a while you can take him out of the cage, and get him to step up, with the promise of a favourite seed/s on yor other hand...that he must step up to get to.

 

6- Now you have a bird who will happily step up to get out and in of the cage, and even climb around on your arms and shoulders now he is more trusting of you. Eventaully, he will step up without seeds, though it is good to occasionally give him seeds/treats for doing so to keep it a good thing in his mind. Getting him to allow you to hold him or 'preen' him will be all his choice, he'll let you when he trusts you more.

 

There, six steps on how to tame your bird. The most vital things to get him to trust you is..let him move at his own pace, do not force him or push him to do anything he does not want to do, though making it more comfortable to do what you want to do (ie, he has to hop onto your hand to get to the seeds, see step 5). Those are the most important things. You can't force someone to trust you, let him take it as far as he is happy with. It may take months or even years, or perhaps just a matter of a few weeks, it all depends on the bird. You may ge the most cuddly friendly bird, or one who will just step up but will not allow you to touch him otherwise.

I've gotten all those kinds of birds in my flock, and how this actually started was not intentional, they just decided one day to eat from the seed dish while I was holding it. (they had first gotten comfortable with me going into the aviary frequently and no longer panicked)

Hope this helps for someone. It sure worked for me.

What great tips!! Thanks for sharing!! I will refer back to this post when I get another Budgie at one stage

Okay I can definetly vouch for the fact that my own advice works, very much so..I've been doing all I wrote above with my flock of 8 budgies ad 1 cockatiel, for a month now. They've been happy to eat the food from the seed bowls when I am holding them (and I have them close to my body when I am holding the dishes also) and climb all over my hands when I have them on the seed dish.

But yesterday the birds took a big step in trusting me...Kyra, first, was staring at the food as there was no room for her, the others bullied her away so they could eat. So she sat there, contemplating what to do..then just leapt onto my arm and clambered over my hands and arms and shoulders and started chewing on my hair. Soon the 3 youngest, Ari, Kato, and Coal all followed her example until I had 4 birds climbing all over me.

The others are older (though Kyra is almost 1, but she is the least wary of hands than the others) so I expect them to take a little longer to do this, but at least two others have been wanting to fly onto me but are too scared to do so, yet.

Just wanted to tell you guys this way of taming really really works, for all my birds, though they are all very different. (in ages and temperment)

That is fantastic