Parakeets are social birds that are commonly found as pets around the world.Being gentle towards a parakeet and talking to it affectionately will help your pet gain your trust. You need to make the parakeet feel as if it’s a part of the family.To finger train your pet parakeet begin by placing your hand very close to the perch in its cage. During the first few days of the training, your parakeet will retreat from coming to your hand. The process of finger training can take a little while and so you will need to be patient. Once your pet bird starts to settle with you, you can stand near the bird’s cage keeping the cage door open for a while. You can also pet its head or neck with a finger but if the bird feels agitated you should remove your finger immediately. Getting close to the bird and petting it takes weeks.When feeding the bird you need to keep the treat between the thumb and the index finger. You also have to make sure that the bird can only reach out to the food if it sits on your finger. If it can easily sneak up to the food in your hand and eat while being perched inside the cage it might retreat from stepping up on your finger and slow up the entire process of training. For this reason, you need to place the food at such a point where the parakeets can’t sneak up easily.If you are interested to know more facts about a parakeet, check out the articles on how long do parakeets live and how do parakeets mate facts.Gaining Trust Before Training A ParakeetThe parakeet is a highly inclusive bird that socializes well with humans. They can be taught to do many things like playing with toys, sitting on a person’s shoulder, and even mimicking a human. However, to do these playful things with your parakeet, you need to gain the trust of your bird. Gaining the trust of your budgies is a matter of time, it involves getting the budgie to see you as its friend and not a stranger. Once they get to know you closely, they will not restrain themselves from playing with you. To gain their trust there are some steps you need to follow.Place their cage in an area where you can interact with the bird. This will make them feel involved in the family. Once they start seeing you as their well-natured friend, they will be social with you. Placing the cage in a room where you spend quiet family time is ideal for your parakeet. The birds do not like to be in places with loud noises, so it is better to keep the cage in a quiet place. If you get a new parakeet you need to spend at least a few hours around its cage every day for a week. Spending time near the cage every day will help them get accustomed to your voice and presence. After a few days start making distinctive noises or actions with your finger whenever you give the bird food or supply it with a treat. Making such finger actions or noises marks the start of their training session with you.After a while when the bird is comfortable with being around you, you can hand feed it by holding a millet spray in your hand. Make a perch with your index finger in front of the bird so that it can hop on your finger. Once the bird is easy around you he can start exploring other rooms in the house but keep the doors, windows, and mirrors closed for the first few days of its free flight. Take the parakeet out of its cage only when it settles with you comfortably, not before that.Training A Parakeet To Come To YouOnce your parakeet has settled with you properly and trusts you, you might want to start training the bird to do some little activities. Nothing can be cuter than the little budgies flying to you when you give them a cue call. You can start the training of your parakeet by teaching the bird this fun little activity first. The most effective method to train a parakeet to fly to you is bribing the budgie with treats.Training the budgies to fly to you is relatively easy. Once the parakeet is comfortable being around you, you can also make it fly to you. It requires a few steps and lots of practice. For this, you have to teach the parakeet to perch on your finger first, although it might seem difficult at first, rubbing its neck while holding the index finger in front of the bird will ultimately make it perch on your finger. After a while, start putting out the finger in front of the bird and make it perch on your hand by a cue call like come or say its name. Alternatively, a distinct noise like a whistle is also effective for some birds. Praise the bird by giving a treat whenever it recognizes your cue. Repeat the process for days till it is properly trained to jump on your finger whenever you cue it. When the parakeet is completely trained to perch on your finger whenever you cue, start increasing the distance of your finger from the bird’s cage. Treating the bird every time it achieves a new distance record will make it obey you more. Repeat this method of cue calling the parakeets by increasing the distance gradually so much so that they need to fly to you whenever you say their name.Teaching A Parakeet To Step Up And OffJust how you train your four-legged pet to sit, in birds, stepping up is the first command that needs to be taught. Teaching a parakeet to step up is not very difficult. It is social by nature and once it starts trusting you, the bird will obey most of your commands and learn them fairly quickly. This type of bonding will decrease any fear the parakeets have of you and will also help in establishing your authority over the bird. There are a few training tips that might help you to teach the bird to step onto your hand and then off.Like all animals, the parakeet training sessions should be short and should include sufficient treats. You should start by training the bird to get accustomed to your hand. If they are not comfortable being on your hand, it will start biting your hand aggressively or will fly off. Begin training by placing tasty treats in your hand. When the bird starts eating from your hand, it is starting to bond with you. The next step of the training process is to make the parakeet perch on your hand. Put the finger on which it has to step up by luring the bird with treats in the other hand. When the bird is finally confident enough to come close to your step-up hand use the command ‘step up’ or simply ‘up’. Repeating and practicing these steps every day with consistency will make the bird accustomed to the command and with time it will learn to step up and perch on hand whenever you give the command. This command will help you to establish a great bond with your bird.When you want the bird to step off of your hand, you need to repeat the same step-up technique but this time keep the treat on the perch inside the bird’s cage. The bird’s perch inside the cage should be higher than the level of your finger in which you are holding the bird. However, although the bird is actually stepping up in its perch from your finger, the command should always be ‘step down’ or just ‘down’. Make sure to maintain eye contact with your bird while commanding them to step off the finger. They should always face you while obeying any command.How long does it take to hand train a parakeet?Hand training parakeets depend on lots of things like their surroundings, age, gender, and also the number of parakeets you decide to keep in the cage. To hand train a new parakeet you have to give it some time to settle in the new surroundings first. A young parakeet that had no human contact whatsoever needs more time to be tamed than an older bird that has spent some time in a pet shop and that has had some human interactions.The parakeets can be hand trained after they turn six weeks old. A pair of parakeets inside a cage give moral support to each other which can speed up the process of parakeet training. Generally, a female parakeet is harder to train than a male bird but if you start training them from a young age, their gender does not seem to matter much.Training a new pet generally takes about a week, in special cases the training period may vary. Go slow and easy on the bird when you’re training it for the first time, talking to it gently and using steady movements around it will help the pet to gain your trust. Slowly insert your hand inside the cage of your parakeet, let it get accustomed to your hand inside the cage. For the first few days, it may retreat to the corners of the cage on seeing your hand, but ultimately it will learn the stepping up process on your finger. Move your hand closer to the place where your pet is perched and hold your index finger still in front of the bird. Encourage him by treating the bird whenever it steps on your hand. This will lure the parakeet towards your hand and it will perch on it comfortably. Once your pet is comfortable being around you, it is now time for them to explore outside the cage. If the bird flies away the first time it is out of the cage, do not chase it, rather attract it with food like millet spray and slowly put it back to its cage. When you are taking the bird out of the cage for the first time, you should consider having its wings trimmed or gettings its wings clipped so that it cannot fly away.Patience While Training A ParakeetPatience is the key for every pet owner training a new pet, a parakeet owner is no exception. Starting from teaching the bird to sit on the finger to train it to talk, everything needs a lot of patience. If you do not handle these training sessions patiently, then the outcome might yield an opposite result of what you desired. Fearing such situations, many families take the help of professional bird trainers to train their parakeets.Training in a parakeet can be started once it is six weeks old. A budgie when introduced to a completely new environment from its old surroundings, requires a little time to settle in. You need to be patient while it settles in. It won’t perch on your hand and will be afraid of your hand for the first few days. However, once the little budgie settles in its cage and gets accustomed to your presence, it will be your friendliest companion. A parakeet is a very active bird, it can be taught many activities. They can obey your instructions, fly to you, and even mimic your voice but they do not learn these skills overnight. Teaching them such activities and practicing with them until they become fluent in it takes a lot of time. Giving up if the parakeet refuses to participate in your fun-filled activity training only after practicing them for a few days will have a detrimental effect on your bonding with the bird.Finger Training A Parakeet Finger training a parakeet is relatively easy, in this process you need to teach the budgie to step onto your finger and assure it that your hand is the best perch for the bird. The only way to train the bird to begin perching on your finger is by treating it with tasty food.When you finger train the birds for the first few weeks, begin by keeping your hands inside the cage for at least five minutes every time and hold your finger very close to the place they are perched, ideally at a single hop distance. This process should be repeated several times a day with at least half an hour interval in between two sessions. With time, the bird will eventually get accustomed to your hand and will step on it to obtain the tasty foods. You have to make sure that they cannot eat the millets without stepping on your hand as this will make them reluctant to step on your hand. During the first few days when the bird does not step on your hand don’t chase it around with your hand inside the cage. Instead, be patient for a few days till it is properly trained to be perched on the hand. You can also speed up the process by petting the neck and the head of the bird gently. It is likely that your pet parakeet will not be able to resist eating the tasty millet spray from out of your hand and will ultimately give up to you.Useful Treats For TrainingTaking care of your parakeet does not only mean being gentle and showering love towards it, giving your parakeet a variety of foods during its training process is equally important. There are many types of food a parakeet might enjoy, you can create a balanced diet from these foods and give them to your bird. A balanced diet will increase the lifespan of the bird and let them lead a healthy life. Some of the many treats a parakeet might enjoy are:Seeds- Parakeets are exceedingly fond of eating seeds but seeds are poor sources of vitamins and minerals. Feeding them seeds only will not provide them enough nourishment.Parakeet pellets- Pellets should be the staple diet of your bird, it is a source of a balanced diet for the bird. However, changing their diet from seeds to pellets might seem challenging during the first few days.Fruits- Fruit is another staple diet of the parakeets. They enjoy eating fresh fruits. Fruits are rich sources of vitamins and minerals. Giving fresh fruit to your bird each day will help to meet the daily nutritional requirements of the bird.Vegetables- Just like fruits, the parakeets are also fond of eating vegetables. Vegetables form another good source of nourishment for the parakeets. Cooked corn and beans can also be given to the birds while they are training. They form rich protein sources for the birds.A parakeet’s diet also consists of other types of treats like millet spray, oat, cooked chicken, and pasta. Eggs are also a good source of protein for the bird while they train.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how to train a parakeet then why not take a look at can parakeets talk, or slaty headed parakeet facts.
Parakeets are social birds that are commonly found as pets around the world.
