[DawnYellow]

Hey y'all,

I've had my budgie for a while now, and I've been hand training her for a long while as well. I wanted to know where I should go from here, and whether I'm doing it right, because the step I'm at is where everyone starts giving me conflicting advice.

I've been able to get her to take treats sticking out from my hand. Twice now I was able to gently nudge her abdomen with my finger. I've heard 1. "Just keep doing that," 2. "Get her wings clipped, darken the room, throw a towel over her, and train her in the bathroom," and 3. "Use a perch first instead of your hand."

I have also heard 50% of people say to remove my hand once she reacts badly, and the other 50% say to keep my hand still and then follow her slowly.

As far as taming is concerned, everyone says you're supposed to gently nudge the abdomen. But when she bit me, and I looked up how birds react to petting, everyone said don't touch below the neck, petting's a mammal thing.

My question is, what worked best for y'all? I know budgies have individual personalities (mine's as stubborn as I am, which is why I like her) so one training method will work great for one person and yield no results for another, but I'm just trying to figure out if I can improve training- for both me and my budgie's sake. (And patience lol)

Edit: Oh, and one more thing- how often should I train her a day, and for how long?

 

[Cody]

Take a look at some of the Stickies in the Taming and Bonding portion of the forum, there is lots of good information there. None of my birds are really tame but all of them will step up onto a perch and most of the time I have to nudge their belly to get them to do so. Unless you have to catch the bird in a hurry I would not throw a towel over the bird, that would be very traumatic for the bird and I think counterproductive. Positive reinforcement is the best way to train, you are rewarding the bird for a action that you have asked for. You have to look at things from the birds point of view. Regarding your hand, it depends on what you mean by reacts badly. If you mean biting, if you withdraw your hand you are conditioning the bird to bite under certain conditions as the bird will associate its biting with getting you to remove your hand. Most birds do not like to be petted or held so I would suggest you do not try, the bird will associate you with an action it does not like . You have to gain the birds trust, you can work with your bird daily but keep the training sessions short, 10 minutes or so.