So, I'm new to this forum and budgie ownership. I had a canary when I was a kid, also a rescue with behavioral issues, and I never intended on taking on a budgie at first but it sort of found me.
Backstory: this budgie was found outside during an early snowstorm almost two years ago. She had been attacked by something and had some feathers on her wing plucked. She was being overtaken by the wind and was falling into the snow. A wonderful bird mom spotted a lime green bird in the storm and saved her and took her to the local shelter. The shelter is well meaning but don't really do great with birds, obviously focusing on dogs and cats and some rabbits, so they tried to have her up for adoption in a week of receiving her, but she was still healing so they gave her 2 weeks.
They then had her put out in the foyer exposed to everyone and everything that came by. Kids poking their fingers in and all that. She kept close to the floor of her cage (who wouldn't) and ate little and was very terrified. I heard about her from someone and felt awful, they were trying to do a bogo adoption to try and get someone to take her home. I was terrified of someone taking her home as an after thought with little to no bird experience. Since I had at least a little experience I researched and got her a big cage, toys, seed, pellets and went to take her home. They also thought she was a he at the time, but her egg laying doesn't lie!
First day, she was quiet and kind of scared but by the second day she was chirping away. I took her to the vet and he examined the injured wing, it looked like she'd be OK, he clipped the other wing so she'd stop flying in circles and hurting herself. She was a real fighter, kicking so hard with her little feet as they tried to examine her. So I hoped in my heart she'd make a good recovery. At this point we thought it was a male, and I didn't DNA test because I had no others so it didn't matter to me. Was severely underweight, was like 35g which is nuts thinking about her weighing 42 - 43g now.
She also couldn't make any "normal " budgie sounds, she literally sounded like a sparrow, so maybe she hung out with them while outside? She learned to make budgie chirps after hearing me watch budgie videos, she kept trying to copy them until she seems to have gotten it. She's a great copy cat and LOVES Disney movies, she'll try and chirp along to the music.
It took a long time to try and have her not freak out about me being near the cage, and I tried to take it real slow, I wanted her to heal before I tried hand taming or anything like that. We also have a dog and we wanted her to be calmly introduced, which I did first, before the hand taming. She took to him quite well, they're good friends now, she'll call him over, she'll climb right onto the bars to get close to his nose and he goes to sniff her, always supervised. If he overstays his welcome a screech sends him running.
So now for today, she's two years on, we figured out she was pretty young when I got her, as her ceres didn't get its proper color until a while after I got her. So I'll assume she's 2. She won't eat any fruit or veggies even though I offer a variety. She's very picky, I tried to get her on pellets, and at first she ate a few and I practically jinxed it by being thankful she seemed to like them at first, a few days later and she decided they now suck and she would rather throw them than eat them. I still offer them but I essentially give her ammo to throw on the floor. I've tried nutriberries and a mix of different pellets. The only toy she plays with avidly are paper strips I make for her, or when I put a little piece of cotton for her to rip at. I change her toys out every few weeks but unfortunately she's so fearful of my hands or new things in general it takes her at least two weeks of them being in there for her to start playing with them so I do that, observe and make note of her play, and when the she bores of them , I change them out again.
I'm trying to hand tame but I haven't been as regular as I was in the past, my bad, I know. She has let me touch her twice, tried standing on my hand one time, only to immediately panic when she looked down and saw she was on my hand. She loves for us to go near her cage and will chirp to me and my boyfriend, she is still flighty but quickly comes back for attention. She nibbles on my boyfriends finger every now and then when he tries to do the hand taming with her, she'll calmly grab at his finger a little and continue to press up to the cage to be close to him. She's been out of her cage a few times but won't do it often, she's a nervous girl. She'll just stare out the open door. Ultimately she's cage bound, and I feel sad for her, I want her to feel comfortable being out of the cage and be able to let her out to have exercise.
My main questions are, is there anything I should be doing for her? Anything I can try, or is it ok that she might always be fearful and cage bound? I'm not going to stop trying but I want to try and do everything I can for her and am worried that maybe I just don't know what I'm doing.
Backstory: this budgie was found outside during an early snowstorm almost two years ago. She had been attacked by something and had some feathers on her wing plucked. She was being overtaken by the wind and was falling into the snow. A wonderful bird mom spotted a lime green bird in the storm and saved her and took her to the local shelter. The shelter is well meaning but don't really do great with birds, obviously focusing on dogs and cats and some rabbits, so they tried to have her up for adoption in a week of receiving her, but she was still healing so they gave her 2 weeks.
They then had her put out in the foyer exposed to everyone and everything that came by. Kids poking their fingers in and all that. She kept close to the floor of her cage (who wouldn't) and ate little and was very terrified. I heard about her from someone and felt awful, they were trying to do a bogo adoption to try and get someone to take her home. I was terrified of someone taking her home as an after thought with little to no bird experience. Since I had at least a little experience I researched and got her a big cage, toys, seed, pellets and went to take her home. They also thought she was a he at the time, but her egg laying doesn't lie!
First day, she was quiet and kind of scared but by the second day she was chirping away. I took her to the vet and he examined the injured wing, it looked like she'd be OK, he clipped the other wing so she'd stop flying in circles and hurting herself. She was a real fighter, kicking so hard with her little feet as they tried to examine her. So I hoped in my heart she'd make a good recovery. At this point we thought it was a male, and I didn't DNA test because I had no others so it didn't matter to me. Was severely underweight, was like 35g which is nuts thinking about her weighing 42 - 43g now.
She also couldn't make any "normal " budgie sounds, she literally sounded like a sparrow, so maybe she hung out with them while outside? She learned to make budgie chirps after hearing me watch budgie videos, she kept trying to copy them until she seems to have gotten it. She's a great copy cat and LOVES Disney movies, she'll try and chirp along to the music.
It took a long time to try and have her not freak out about me being near the cage, and I tried to take it real slow, I wanted her to heal before I tried hand taming or anything like that. We also have a dog and we wanted her to be calmly introduced, which I did first, before the hand taming. She took to him quite well, they're good friends now, she'll call him over, she'll climb right onto the bars to get close to his nose and he goes to sniff her, always supervised. If he overstays his welcome a screech sends him running.
So now for today, she's two years on, we figured out she was pretty young when I got her, as her ceres didn't get its proper color until a while after I got her. So I'll assume she's 2. She won't eat any fruit or veggies even though I offer a variety. She's very picky, I tried to get her on pellets, and at first she ate a few and I practically jinxed it by being thankful she seemed to like them at first, a few days later and she decided they now suck and she would rather throw them than eat them. I still offer them but I essentially give her ammo to throw on the floor. I've tried nutriberries and a mix of different pellets. The only toy she plays with avidly are paper strips I make for her, or when I put a little piece of cotton for her to rip at. I change her toys out every few weeks but unfortunately she's so fearful of my hands or new things in general it takes her at least two weeks of them being in there for her to start playing with them so I do that, observe and make note of her play, and when the she bores of them , I change them out again.
I'm trying to hand tame but I haven't been as regular as I was in the past, my bad, I know. She has let me touch her twice, tried standing on my hand one time, only to immediately panic when she looked down and saw she was on my hand. She loves for us to go near her cage and will chirp to me and my boyfriend, she is still flighty but quickly comes back for attention. She nibbles on my boyfriends finger every now and then when he tries to do the hand taming with her, she'll calmly grab at his finger a little and continue to press up to the cage to be close to him. She's been out of her cage a few times but won't do it often, she's a nervous girl. She'll just stare out the open door. Ultimately she's cage bound, and I feel sad for her, I want her to feel comfortable being out of the cage and be able to let her out to have exercise.
My main questions are, is there anything I should be doing for her? Anything I can try, or is it ok that she might always be fearful and cage bound? I'm not going to stop trying but I want to try and do everything I can for her and am worried that maybe I just don't know what I'm doing.
and Welcome!
