Hi there, mapleleaves, welcome to the flock. Congrats on your new companion, and kudos to you for making good progress in a very short time.

As for flying to you, i would suggest for starters adjusting your thinking away from "making" your budgie to do things "on demand"; and start thinking more in terms of finding ways to encourage him to WANT to do the things you want him to do.

A great way to start is to figure out what he likes, in terms of food, toys, praise, and physical contact (but mostly in terms of food) and reinforcing (rewarding) him with those things when he does what you want.

For instance, you could give him a little bite from a spray of millet every time he steps up, then take a step away from him so that he has to hop to you to get his millet, then another step away from him so that he has to make a short flight for his millet. This is how i taught my lovebird to fly to me.

There are some really excellent articles to read here at the Forum - "What is training" and "Clicker training" are a great place to start.

Hope this helps get you started.


lisa
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement."

thanks for your help, but the weird thing is that my bird eats nothing other than normal bird food, i've tried millet, friuts, honey bars, but nothing seem to be able to get his interest.

is there anything else i can do?

What is "normal bird food"? A seed mix?
lisa
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement."

ya, with vegies and stuff

i got the crap scared out of me when i was taking my bird out of the cage and the door suddenly closed behind the bird. he went crazy and wouldn't stay on my finger, but after a few minutes, everything went back to normal. what do you think, would this event have an affect on my bond with the bird?

Ok, a couple of things to consider:

1. If you've been offering the "treat" foods by hand, your bird may be too shy to take it from you right now - many birds are, even if they're willing to step up as yours is. Try putting one type at a time in with his regular food for a few days and seeing what he's eating on his own. If he's a young bird he may not have been offered this type of food before and will need some time to decide to try it.

2. He probably has his his favorites of the seeds he's eating now, and odds are he likes millet best. It can be hard to see what a budgie is picking out to eat first. You could try a mix without millet and see if it becomes more attractive to him when you offer it seperately.

3. Also try pellets, greens and a variety of fresh veggies - an all-seed and dehydrated veggie diet isn't adequate nutrition for the long term.

4. He may like carrot greens or sprouted seeds - my lovebird goes crazy for these. Also you could try cooked warm cereals, some budgies really like these as well.

You're probably thinking that i'm really emphazing food reinforcers, and you're right. There's no question in my mind that my birds are very bonded to me, but for positive reinforcement training i still rely on food, especially for something as important as "fly to me."

lisa
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement."

hey thanks alot, i can rally learn a lot of things from you lisa!

there's one thing that still confuses me, you know how you said some birds are too shy to take food from my hand, well, my bird ate millet from my hand the first day i got it, and he was crazy for it, but never touched it again ever since.

i don't know if he likes friuts and veggies, cause i put a small piece in his cage but he never took a bite, i tried apple and honeydew, i'll try carrots today, hope it works.

hey i would really like to chat with you instead of waiting for you to reply my message, if you like the idea, let me know.

If the bird is sitting next to a full bowl of food all day, he may have sorta lost interest in food as a reward. (Why should he go out of his way to get food when there's so much sitting around?) Consider feeding a small amount in the morning - just enough so he eats ALL of it before you come home. Then see if he's more interested in treats and training.

If you click the "articles" link at the top of this web page, it will take you to a list of articles, one is titled Teaching Recall and it describes some methods I used to get my bronzewing pionus (Phoebe) to fly to me on cue. It's really pretty straightforward, but you need to be able to reward the bird in order to begin training. If you can't find a favorite treat, try cutting back his buffer privileges to get him interested. :-)

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA

I think you just need to give it more time. Your budgie is pretty tame already, for only having him a week. He probably isn't going to really want to fly to you until you have a good bond, and that can take months.
But the best I can suggest is to just spend time with him, holding him and talking to him, playing with him, and offering treats when he is willing to take them. Millet or oat groats are usually good treats. You might also want to try leafy greens, broccoli, or bread - put some of these foods in his cage for a few days and if it turns out he really likes any of them, that can make a good treat.
My little budgie will usually fly over for food, but he also just likes the company of people. If I call him over, he will usually fly over right away because he knows I'll talk to him, and he loves that. He's also a very good little talker because I spend the time talking to him.

Karen
Chico (conure) and Pippin (budgie)
WI

thanks for nate and kate for the tips, i'll try what you've suggested and see what happens, hope it works!

I agree with Karen. I too find that my cockatiel respond very well to talk and praises. I guess the soothing and enthusiastic tone motivates him.
His wings were clipped when we got him but he would hops onto the floor and looks for me. When he sees me he'll chirp loudly and when I offered him my foot and say 'come', he'd climb all the way to my shoulder.

ForAero
Calgary AB