Broken Trust with my Budgie

Libbiheath

Regular Member
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Hello!
I have a Budgie named Blair, who if I must say, is an INCREDIBLY stubborn bird. :D
When I first got her it took several months until she began to trust me, and we bonded very closely. She would fly up to me, sit on my head, try and eat my hair, it was lovely (except from the hair thing) however, I had to move from my old house and in my new house it wasn't safe for her and my other budgies to come out of their cage. the cage is quite large and i have multiple toys and foraging activities in there, but what was meant to be only a few weeks of just keeping them in a cage turned into months because of COVID and other things. Eventually it was like my budgies didn't know who I was anymore which is completely understandable, and I started their training once more.

However two out of my three budgies passed away and that left Blair, they didn't go in a nice way and the accident had left Blair traumatised. I've left her to grieve for a few days and have just spent my time sitting on a stool by her cage reading out loud or singing, she sings back sometimes (probably to get me to shut up lol) but whenever I get a bit closer she freaks out and flies to the other end of the cage. So I decided I would start her training again with target training, which started off incredibly well, and she did actually enjoy it enough she would want to come out the cage to do it again. However my house is near a road and one day while she was out a motorbike rode past and revved the engine really hard, it spooked her and she just darted from her perch and smacked into the nearest wall, I rushed to her and picked her up in my hand gently (she does not like anyone touching her) and she absolutely went berserk!!

I knew she was stunned and didn't liked to be touched so I checked her for injuries and once I knew she was okay I popped her back in her cage. The next day when I tried speaking to her or a little bit of target training she completely ignored me, which I thought was fair enough she does get angry with me often. so I left her alone. Today however she was chirping happily again and I decided that she had forgiven me and started training again. However as soon as I opened the door she flipped out, and tried to bite my hands.

I am worried that because I handled her to check her over that I have broken her trust and I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to build up that trust again. if it can be built up again or any training tips. :)
 
Sorry to hear that you lost your other birds. I think all you can do is just be very patient with her, still talk to her and interact without touching. Let her out of her cage when you're there and she'll eventually get to see that she can trust you. Speak when you're around her such as changing food/water etc.. but let it go at her pace. If you see improvement, don't push it or you could set it back. Best of luck.
 
Sorry to hear about your situation, it must be very distressing for you, but maybe you should work on gaining trust again at the pace of starting all over again from scratch. This way you will expect a slow progress and anticipate the 3 steps forward followed by 2 back, yet hopefully things will happen quicker than with a new bird.
Your sitting with Blair to talk to her is good and as @MJGB - MikeJenGaryBeckyBoo say you will have to take it at her pace. Please let us know how you get on.
 
That's a pretty sad story, to prevent your bird from crashing into windows you could get some curtains, they don't have to be fancy or anything, just so the birdie See's something is there, your budgie may be stressed from losing her two friends, so just take it slow and steady, you could sit next to the cage and do something like drawing, reading, or anything as long as the bird isn't the center of focus so she understands you aren't a predeter, it seems birds think our heads are pretty nice and safe so you could let her eat some millit on there
 
Hi! I just wanted to update everyone it’s been a little while since I posted that thread and a lot has happened!
Everyday I worked with Blair, working at her pace and just making sure she knew I was there for her and not a predator.

eventually it worked! She flew over to my head on her own accord and I of course rewarded her for it and since then we’ve been working on simple tricks like step up and kiss, which she was able to do before!
Also I rescued another budgie yesterday, His name is Juno and he’s the biggest budgie I’ve ever seen Lol! But he’s so sweet and really really calm, In a day I had taught him step up and Blair adores him too!

thank you for all the advice given it really helped knowing mine and Blair’s bond hadn’t completely broken! :)
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That is good news thank you for the update and good for you giving Juno a good home and that Blair adores him.
 
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