If you've seen my post in the Genetics and Mutations board you'll know that I'm getting another budgie hopefully this thursday. He/she will be going in with my 4 other budgies and my cockatiel. None of the budgies are tame, the cockatiel is semi-tame but I would love to have a tame budgie...I was thinking of keeping it in a seperate cage and tame it (it will be a baby), and then when it trusts me I would put it in with my other birds. I wouldn't keep it in a cage by itself its whole life as I am at school all day or I am at work so I don't have enough time to be the budgies only companion, I don't feel that it would be right to do that to a budgie. So it would have to go in with the other budgies. But would it just become untame once it starts interacting with the other budgies? Would it be a waste of my time to do this?

Any new bird should be quarantined for at least 30 days. During that time you could be spending lots of time taming your new bird. It really is very individual to the bird as to how it reacts when it goes in with others. Some stay tame, others don't. I suspect it has to do with how strong a bond you have before they are placed in the aviary.

Yeah, regardless of taming, you definitely need to quarantine the new bird in a separate cage and separate room of the house. It may not like being solitary but that is far better than risking the spread of disease to your other birds. Use those 30+ days to monitor his droppings and look for other signs of illness. It's also the best time to get him checked out by the vet. And in my opinion, it is extremely important to work on taming him during this time. It's the perfect opportunity as there will be no distractions from other birds and he wouldn't have had a chance to bond with any of the other birds yet. I've done this with all of my budgies (as well as cockatiels) and thanks to this method, am able to still interact with them now that they've met each other.

 

Another thing: Are you housing the budgies and cockatiel together in a cage or aviary? I wouldn't recommend keeping them together but if it's done, it should be an aviary so that the cockatiel can get away from the budgies if need be.

 

Be careful when introducing the new bird to the rest. Adding more birds means taking up more space in the cage/aviary and in my experience this is when fights are more likely to happen. The more space they have, the less likely they are to fight with each other.

He/she will already have gone through a quaretine before I get him/her, so I don't need to worry about it.

It will have to be housed in the seperate cage in the same room as the budgies (my bedroom) because its the only safe room away from our cats. So if it can hear the other budgies, will this effect the ability for it to be tamed?

The cockatiel is housed in a large cage with the budgies, it might even be considered an aviary I guess. He was housed with budgies at my work, and when I brought him home he did go into his own cage. But he sulked and I felt bad that he was alone all day when I was at school, its not fair to do that to a bird in my opinion. So I put him with the budgies and they all get along great, occassionaly there is a bicker over food but I'm adding a few more food dishes so that doesn't have to happen. The budgies will sit there and groom him, its cute.

My Teapot didnt lose any of his tameness once he was introduced to Snowy, my wild at heart rescue budgie. Now that they also share the room with 3 cockatiels (one of which is a timid little thing) he is still just as tame.

Id go for it, it cant hurt. And spending quality time working on building up trust between your little bird and you can NEVER be a waste of time.

Anne

umm i would tame it first then add with your other birds i dont think it will lose its tameness my bird has recieved a freind (untaim)and is still very tame! :fear

Id go for it, it cant hurt. And spending quality time working on building up trust between your little bird and you can NEVER be a waste of time.

Oops, guess I worded it wrong. I didn't really mean it would be a waste of time, I just wanted to know if the budgie would stay tame or not.

So he arrived at the store today, I went to see him afterschool, he's adorable! He's young (I'll have to ask how old he is) and so cute. His body is the normal blue color, but a little bit lighter, and instead of having black markings on his black they are grey. So he has a little bit of both colors I wanted, blue and grey, which I thought was cool. I'm bringing him home when I'm done working at 5 and I'll have his cage set-up for him already.

Unfortunalty, as I pointed out, he'll have to be in the same room as my budgies, because that is the only room where the door is closed when we are not home (we have cats). Also, there is no Avain Vet where I live, I'll have to see what vet my boss uses, as I know its not the one in town.

Its okay Meg, I know you didnt mean it that way