So, my brother bought a budgie, and a week later bought a second. We'll just call them Blue and Green (both girls). He was (to my knowledge) bonded to them very well. A month or so after, my brother left for college and left the birds here. After about 2 weeks of the birds being left in the living room with no attention given to them other than food and water being refilled, I was given the responsibility of the birds, and after 2 months it feels like they still don't trust me at all.

I spend around 9 hours in a room with the cage in it, and I occasionally go up to try and feed them a treat or softly talk to them. Blue will step up onto my finger, but she won't step up outside of their cage, in fact neither will get near me at all outside of their cage. I have been able to feed them treats from my hand, and they cautiously eat bird seed out of the palm of my hand, but other than that they pretty much never get near me or my hand. They do seem more comfortable around me than my parents, but that's really not saying much. Am I doing something wrong, or do they just need more time? I try to be very patient with them and introduce new things to them very slowly, but it feels like after 2 months I've hardly made any progress. What can I do?

If it helps to know, they get along decently. I see them preen each other, sleep together, and seem distressed if one can't find the other, but I also sometimes see Blue bullying Green.

Any advice at all is highly appreciated. Thank you.


-Quick edit, I wanted to take over for the birds for a while after my brother had gotten them. It felt like he only wanted them as a novelty after seeing some funny videos of budgies, because he paid attention to them less and less, and it had come to the point that I cared more for his birds than he did.

You can try clicker training them.
Do they get offered a lot of out of cage time to fly around and such?
DO you have any pictures of them?

Hi there and to the forums,

Thank you for taking over in the care of these little ones. Unfortunately for many people budgies seem a bit like aquarium fish after a while - nice to look at and that's it. As you know that's totally false, so I'm glad you're looking after them now!

The truth is that generally budgies will bond more closely to one another than to a person if they have always lived together, especially after being left to their own devices for a little bit. It seems like they trust you but don't feel a need to be with you as they don't see you as part of their flock. As Moira suggested, clicker training is a good method to reach out to them, and spending as much time as you can with them helps too. It doesn't have to be interacting with them by trying to get them to step up, etc., just sitting right next to their cage, telling them things, doing whatever you have to do while sitting next to them will help them to warm up a little bit. Progress may be slow but it's worth it to see them opening up to you eventually, even if they never become fully tame!

Meanwhile, you've come to a great place to learn even more about the best of budgie care practices. Please be sure to have a look around the forums to make sure you're up to date on everything! If you have any questions please be sure to ask as we'd love to help.

Hope to see you around

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Moira and Star have both offered excellent advice.

Keep in mind that it really takes a great deal of time and patience when you are working to bond with budgies.

We truly appreciate that you are doing your best with them and that you're giving them the love, time, attention and care they deserve.

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As an anecdote, when I had my girl it took her an entire year before she really trusted me, and I was her only owner. She much preferred the company of my boy budgie to people whereas he loves everyone. Some birds are just like that.