I'm so excited! I brought my first pet budgie home just 2 days ago. He is in a cage exactly like this one. He's covered in a dark sheet with the front exposed as he's still being pretty shy. I think he's slowly but surely settling in though. He eats many times a day (I'm in awe of how much a bird actually eats!), poos consistantly, preens, naps, stretches, and even chirps a little in the morning and right before bed. So far my cats have been very curious. The boundaries are that they are allowed to look, but are not allowed to touch the stand or touch or be anywhere near the cage. The spray bottle has been implemented. I also put the kitties in my bedroom with their food, water and litter box when I leave the house. I can't wait to start finger taming K'ulli in a week or so. I'll be using the technique suggested by BudgieTalk.com for a more skittish budgie. Primarily because I chose not to have his wings clipped. I haven't taken pictures yet because I don't want to scare him with the flash, but as soon as I take 'em with my I'll post them here. Thanks for listening guys and if you have any suggestions on what I've mentioned please let me know. I'm a newb so constructive criticism is much appreciated!

Well hi and welcome. Sounds like your little one is settling in just fine, and also sounds like he is very lucky as you seem to have done a lot of research on budgie. Congratulations, and please post pictures and tell us how you get on with training

Congratulations Vroom. K'ulli sounds like a great budgie. There's alot of surprising things that budgies do. Make sure you let us know how your progress goes and post some pictures if/when you can.

you are doing great, welcome aboard. My 2 cats, now don't bother with Pretty much , but they were interested at first, so I locked them up. Now everyone is okay, in fact he loves the cats (in his cage (Laughing out loud)), he goes right up to them when they peer in his cage. I have a few photos in the photo section with him and the kitties.

:ausb: Enjoy your new budgie!

isnt it so exciting welcome to the world of budgies your doing fine he will settle in a week or 2 whats he called he was such a nice big cage! well welcome marie XX

congrats on your new little guy!!

Everyone, thanks so much for the warm welcome! Thank you Lin! You're right, I'm trying to be a responsible new bird mom and am researching a ton. This forum is a great resource. HurdyBirdy, his antics really are so cute! I'm going to take pics soon, since he's warming up to me. Now I just have to find the darn USB cable! :ausb: Lovey, I'll look for your pics. It's comforting to know that your guys get along so well. I feel bad sometimes, because my kitties hate being squirted, but they are still in the "Hey, what's that?!" phase. Thanks, Phoebe, Smilyl and Pixie25, I just love him to pieces already!

 

K'ulli is doing just great! He's been much calmer when I change his food, water and liner out in the mornings. So a few days ago I started the process of hand taming him. It's much sooner than I thought, so I'm pretty excited. I started by just leaving my hand in for 15 minutes several times a day, then working up to getting closer to him, and now I'm able to get him to perch in a dowel with my hand just an inch or so away. He's also perched on my hand once, though it was only for a few seconds before he flew back onto one his perches. He'll also put one foot on my finger, and then shimmy back off. He'll nibble and try to chew the dowel, and he'll very softly nibble on my fingers too. It's so funny to watch him, and he's so cute!

 

Thanks again guys! More news as it comes.

Hello and welcome! It sounds like you are progressing well with your new addition. If you haven't already, cut a small (2") section of millet spray and begin holding that out to him when you are getting him used to your hand in the cage. :ausb:

I was thinking the same thing Rainbow

 

How do you pronouce his name? and were did you get the idea to name he such?

That's a good idea Rainbow. I'm going to try that. He gets millet in his seed mix (bad mix I know, but I'll soon be switching him to Harrisons and am still researching for new mixes,) but he might still be enticed. I could probably try one of Birds n Ways recipes too if that doesn't work, right? I'm glad you guys asked about K'ulli's name. It's pronounced cool-ee and it's Native American Indian, Aymara to be exact. It means sky blue. I'm not Indian or anything, but I really like to find unique names for my pets and he really struck me as a "K'ulli."

thanks for that, I was saying it correctly then WOOT. I love the way you found something like that to suit.

Thanks Nerwen.

Mine eat Harrison's too, among other things. I have found they eat it more readily the smaller the pellet size. I use the Mash and the Superfine and mix them. Fine is recommended for budgies, but it was a little too big and they never really went for it. The smaller sizes work better for me. In the beginning, just get the 1 lb bags and try different ones until you find the size they will eat. It's expensive at first, but once they start eating it, there is not much waste.

Thanks for that advice Rainbow. Anything to make switching him easier is much appreciated. I think I'll try the same thing as you do with the mash and superfine. I also found some great recipes for birdy treats that I'm going to start getting him into now. Hopefully I'll be able to ply him with the pellets and his fave treat mixed together at the beginning. :ausb:

oh good im sure he will love the traets! :ausb:

Hi Everyone, just wanted to give another update. K'ulli is doing just great. After a little bit of trial and error we finally have a training rythm. He was doing really well the first few days we started hand taming, but then progress started to slow down a bit. I was following Budgie Talk's older more skittish budgie technique at first b/c I thought it would be less stressful on the both of us, but after a while it seemed like he just didn't want to progress any further. He would perch on my fingers for a few seconds on the first few days, but after a while he didn't want to perch anymore. He would also avoid my hand anytime I tried to get him to perch again. I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong, or if it was just plain the way he was. I did get him from a pet store and I understand that those budgies are harder to tame b/c they are not handled a lot as they grow up. I switched to the young bird technique a few days ago. First I tried, like the instructions said, to take him out with my hands wrapped in a washcloth and bring him into the bathroom to spend 15 minutes hand taming. But then decided to just move his whole cage into the bathroom and he seems to like this much better. I'm sure it was freaky for him to one minute try to trust my hand and then the next have to be caught by it. Anyhow, he willingly comes to my hand in the bathroom now, and I spend time just sitting and humming, talking, or making birdie noises to him. He still is shy of my hand when I try to get him to perch in the cage, but this may just be from being nervous of being caught right? It's so rewarding bonding with him, and when he looks at me with those intelligent, dark eyes it just warms my heart.

welcome to the forum