Top Tips for How to Hand Tame your Parakeet
One of the questions I get most often is: “How do I hand tame my parakeet?” Here’s what I usually tell people who ask how to hand tame their budgie. The keys are patience, time, and millet!
Patience & Time
The first step is to patiently help your parakeet get used to your presence. Start by hanging out near their cage. When I’m working on taming budgies, I move a chair next to their cage and read a book or my phone for a half hour to an hour several times a day. To get them used to and comfortable with my voice, I occasionally talk to them in a soft voice. I also glance up toward them but not directly at them, since that signals “predator!” When they are comfortable with me being near their cage, I do the same thing with their door open. Then I advance to resting my hand on the edge of the door, then later just inside the door. This can be physically uncomfortable, but stick with it! I keep at it until I can move my hand around in their cage without them freaking out and flying around.
Millet
Millet spray is usually irresistible for most budgies. It should be kept as a special treat, only to be given with your hand when your budgies are used to having your hand inside their cage. Click here to see the millet I buy for my own parakeets. Take the same patience and time approach to get your budgie eating from your hand. First, offer the millet to them where they sit on their perch. Then you can train your parakeet to step up onto your finger. Hold the spray in one hand and with the other, bump one finger up against their legs and belly until they step up onto your finger. When they do, you can move the millet closer so they can enjoy it. Make them used to the idea that in order to get the millet, they have to step up on and eventually stay on your finger. You may have to start with treating them for just having one foot up on your finger before they are ready to have both feet up. Once they’re used to just hanging out on your finger, you can begin moving your finger away from the perch, around the cage, and eventually out of the cage!
If you are willing to try (and more importantly be consistent with) clicker training, millet is the perfect training tool. I’ll write a separate post about the clicker training process later.
Budgies don’t have the biggest brains, so don’t be surprised if they forget their training if you haven’t practiced for a while. My two parakeets go back and forth with how hand tame they are, depending on how much I have worked with them any given week. One of the funny things is that no matter how freaked out they are by my hand, they do still step up onto my finger. Whether they stay there depends on how much I have worked with them. So my best advice if you want to keep your budgies hand tame is to work with them every day, be patient and consistent, and stay stocked up with millet!
Thank you so much for these tips. My two sweet budgies are my world since my disability. They really are my only friends and I worry that I frighten them too much for them to want to come to me. I apparently had a very easily agreeable bird for a first time budgie owner and incorrectly assumed that all budgies were going to be easy to hand train. That not being the case, my two boys who I’ve owned now for a few years are still afraid of me. See, my first budgie came directly to me when I bent over his cage with the door open. He never left my side. But these two flutter about and then cling to their cage even if I am trying to clean up their food and water daily. I kept thinking that it was me that was doing something wrong. These little fellows are older than my first bird, which is probably the big difference. I will try your approach and see. I want them to be close, hopefully they will see me as less of a threat. Thank you. <3
Hey there! So one thing I will add that is in my experience and anecdotally, training two birds is much harder than training one bird. The two birds seem to pair up together, whereas with one bird they will tend to pair up with their human owner. With two birds you may have become the third wheel in their relationship and may find them less affectionate than a single bird overall. Its harder for them to associate you as part of their flock since they have each other. And, just like people, parakeets each have their own unique personalities.
I would suggest trying to start training them before feeding using a millet spray and clicker. It is going to take more patience than a single bird, and you may have to lower your expectations on how far your relationship will go with both birds. It takes longer, but stay consistent with your interactions and you should be able to make a breakthrough!