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Will my budgie become untamed if i let his wings grow out?

MiniMacaw

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I just saw your question of how to train outside a cage. In my experience we let the budgies out in a secure, bird safe room and I just let life happen. I clean the room, I let the kids play on the floor, I read a book. Some days I was super attractive with millet on my head lol. Then as they started venturing near me the millet went on my hand. If at any time they get scared they knew they could fly to anywhere in the room and I wouldn't follow them, I'd just continue with my day. Eventually they came to my hand to seek millet. Then scritches followed. This took months. But it's their schedule not mine.
 

Lady Jane

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Lisa that was a great way to work with the budgies.
 

Shinobi

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Birds know how to avoid glass. He doesn't need his wings clipped.

Birds don't know how to avoid glass windows, that's why so many birds fly into windows and injured themselves. They need to be taught about windows.
 

JLcribber

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That's
I just saw your question of how to train outside a cage. In my experience we let the budgies out in a secure, bird safe room and I just let life happen. I clean the room, I let the kids play on the floor, I read a book. Some days I was super attractive with millet on my head lol. Then as they started venturing near me the millet went on my hand. If at any time they get scared they knew they could fly to anywhere in the room and I wouldn't follow them, I'd just continue with my day. Eventually they came to my hand to seek millet. Then scritches followed. This took months. But it's their schedule not mine.

That's the way we treat all the small birds. Just become part of their world.
 

AvianCrew

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Birds don't know how to avoid glass windows, that's why so many birds fly into windows and injured themselves. They need to be taught about windows.
Woops, probably should've rephrased that.
 

Saya

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I haven't read through all the posts here yet, but I have three budgies. I let them out daily in a bedroom to fly. I got them with clipped wings from rescue however I let them grow out. They were terrified of me and everything while they were bumbling around with no flight feathers. Once they could fly they started landing near me, then on me. After only a few months they started landing on my hand and eating millet. I never actually trained "step up." I just let us all play together until I wasn't so scary and their curious nature took over. Here's my guy Maui right now. :) View attachment 248159
How did you go about it all? Your story is really interesting !!
 

Saya

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I just saw your question of how to train outside a cage. In my experience we let the budgies out in a secure, bird safe room and I just let life happen. I clean the room, I let the kids play on the floor, I read a book. Some days I was super attractive with millet on my head lol. Then as they started venturing near me the millet went on my hand. If at any time they get scared they knew they could fly to anywhere in the room and I wouldn't follow them, I'd just continue with my day. Eventually they came to my hand to seek millet. Then scritches followed. This took months. But it's their schedule not mine.
That's so cool!! I'm waiting to completely bird proof my rrom and let their wings gro out and hopefully i can do the same as you. Your story is really interesting
 

MiniMacaw

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How did you go about it all? Your story is really interesting !!
I just went about my day really. I brought the cage into the bird safe room and opened the top door. Eventually they came out and started flying/exploring. It's a lot easier to be folding laundry in my daughter's room when I have three colorful little budgies fluttering around lol. I just did normal stuff like putting clothes away, tidying her room, etc and the budgies were out the whole time. Then I started putting millet on me so they'd be interested. Once they realized I wasn't going to hurt them, and they could always fly away from me, they became more comfortable.
 

Buzzard

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My 2 cents worth- a clipped bird is a bird that has trouble responding naturally to a fearful situation (flying away from what frightens him). I might be biased because I do not like clipping, but the birds I have seen clipped for taming purposes seem much more afraid, much more likely to bite defensively, and often more stressed out than those being tamed while fully flighted and allowed to disengage from the tamer when they wish. That said, I 100% get how clipping can seem like a good way to keep them safe, but really it is safer if they learn to fly and navigate properly. Sometimes birds get 'stuck' up high because they managed to get up high in a burst of panic or playfulness and then seemed frightened to come back down because they had learned not to trust their own wings and flying ability. I know you have your birds best interest at heart, and I think you will find it really rewarding learning to trust him while he learns to trust you too.
 

Saya

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I just went about my day really. I brought the cage into the bird safe room and opened the top door. Eventually they came out and started flying/exploring. It's a lot easier to be folding laundry in my daughter's room when I have three colorful little budgies fluttering around lol. I just did normal stuff like putting clothes away, tidying her room, etc and the budgies were out the whole time. Then I started putting millet on me so they'd be interested. Once they realized I wasn't going to hurt them, and they could always fly away from me, they became more comfortable.
That's so neat! My budgies are out right now but they seem more interested in each other than anything else so I hope patience will pay off... did you just hand feed to tame them or did you try to do training sessions?
 
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