Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 11/12/2007

Question
He is never very energetic, he hates getting wet, he hates being held and will not sit on your shoulder for very long, he seems to have quite a short attention span, and he will not eat any fresh fruit. I have'nt had him for very long, between 3 and 5 months. He was found outside on the ground and nobody has claimed him. He was an adult budgie. we are having difficulty training him, he will hop on your finger only if you force him and he hasn't bonded to us at all. I am 12 and I live with my dad. I was a bit rough with him at first as I didn't really know how to handle him. He is our first budgie. He is usaully let out to fly aruond my bedroom while I'm at school and he has a small plaground to play on, but usually he just likes to sit on the high shelves and run back and forth. if he is feeling playful he will peck the wall. just recently he has been opening his beak wide quite often. it started about 2 or 3 weeks ago, as little fitsof opening it not very wide. Last week and the week before I was trying to get him to like baths so i forced him to have a bath every day. i soon realised that was cruel and stopped. plaese help. i love him to bit and cannot bear the thought of losing him. my dad will not take him to the vet no matter how much i beg. also, do you have any tips on how i could get him to bond with me. and if he is sick what can i do to make him comfortable, as I dont think my dad will take him to the vet at all. please please help.

Answer
Hi, Jessica,

Your bird is not tame...this is why it behaves the way it does.  It sounds like this bird is normal for an untame bird.  If you treated the bird roughly at first, the bird most likely doesn't trust you now.  Forcing a bath on the bird every day also didn't help matters any.  You'll need to build trust with the bird by not scaring it any more and working with the bird every day.  Birds open their beaks wide when they are trying to dislodge something like a seed hull that gets stuck in their mouth or throat.  Birds also yawn just like you and I do...could this be what the bird is doing?  You haven't given me any reason in your post to suspect your bird is sick.  

What color cere does this bird have (the cere is the colored area above the beak)?  Males have blue ceres and females have white/brown/tan/beige ceres.  Behavior is different between males and females.  Some birds like to bathe and some don't...don't force bathing...use a spray misting bottle when the bird needs a bath or just give the bird a dish of water so s/he can bathe itself.  All my budgies don't like fruit either, but they love cooked brown rice with veggies mixed in, corn bread, dry sugarless cereals, greens like kale, spinach, etc.  Birds won't eat foods they don't recognize, so you just have to keep offering the foods every day until eventually the bird tries the new foods.  This would be like your dad trying to get you to eat something you've never seen before...you'd likely wouldn't eat it!  Also, get your bird on pelleted food.  Pelleted food have vitamins/minerals just for birds.  

Start saving your money because at some point in the future, your bird may need to see the bird vet and you'll need to pay the vet for his/her services.  

Visit my website for more general information:  www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html.  www.birdchannel.com is also a good site.

Chrys