Will I still be able to tame my baby parakeets if I wait to hold them after they leave the nest?

Question

i dont want to disrupt the parents becuase the parent's arent tame. ive been talking to the babies everyday and they dont seem scared of me. will they be tame when they come out of the nesting box?

Answer 1

Yes, as soon as they are weaned remove them from the parents. Put them in a separate cage and have them eat from your hands. Oh, wash/dry your hands and then dip them in the seed container several times so your hands smell like seed. Spend quiet time holding them with them eating the seeds out of your hands. Do not put them back in with their parents. Clip their wings. If you don't know how to do this safely, have a vet do this and show you how. Many will do this for about ten dollars each. You don't want them flying away when you are trying to hand tame them. Make sure you are in a 'safe' room while holding them. Not wandering cats, dogs or ceiling fans running. Make sure that no matter where they fly you will be able to get to them.

Have them get used to the idea of you having seeds/pellets in your hands. You will become the substitute parent.The more time you spend with them; the sooner your communication will grow and you will bond.

I was able to tame a 4 year old parent fed Cockatiel this way; so you will have the advantage of having to undo only a few weeks of bonding with the parents.

Be patient and gentle.

Answer 2

yes you can.

Answer 3

No. You should not wait that long- by then, it will be too late to tame them.

Start handling the babies, seperately, at 12 days old for ten minutes each. Make sure you wash your hands real good with anti-bacterial soap, first, since our hands have germs and young baby birds do not have fully developed immune systems yet.  be sure to keep it quite dark their first few days out, since they are used to being in the dark nesting box, the light may hurt their eyes.

Be sure to check on them frequently, as Budgie hens tend to kick out the nesting material (they don't use nesting material in the wild) so splayed legs are common with budgies.  If you get a Budgie with splayed legs, you need to fix it IMMEDIATELY (while the bones are still flexible) or else your baby will be crippled for life.

And in between handling the babies, read up on breeding Budgies so that you know exactly what to do should anything arise. (Such as the parents abandoning the chicks. Which is also common. Then the babies will need to be handfed around the clock, every 2 hours when real young, every 4 when a bit older. Learn how to weigh the babies with an empty crop to know that 10 grams=1cc of 40:60 formula:water @ 105 degrees, how to sterilize your syringes and eyedroppers between feedings, how to fix splayed legs that are so common with Budgie babies, how to spot, treat & prevent common problems with baby birds, etc.)

;D

P.S. To the person above- Parrots have a very vad sense of smell- they can't barely even smell at all. So they will never be able to tell that your hand smells like seed. But even if they did, that would only encourage them to bite your hand, assuming they even cared about the seed because they have a dish FULL of seeds they could eat as soon as the big monster left them alone.  It's much easier and less stressfull to the babies to hand raise