November 24, 2006

Parakeets were uncovered at 9:30am this morning.

They completely ate another square of the avicakes, so i emptied it out and put two new square pieces of avicakes in. i placed a 1" piece of millet spray in to their food bowl while they watched - i am trying to associate my presence with bringing millet, which they eat up with gusto!

while spending about 2 -3 hours with them before lunch, i sat down about 5 feet away from the cage this time and sang and read a chapter from a book to them. they soon started to get hungry and they came down to the food bowl. the blue one landed on the bottom of the cage and looked at the millet spray package near my leg. so i took a long piece, held on to it at the halfway mark and slowly edged one end of the millet spray to the cage bars. i sang to them and didn't really look at them. soon they started to eat from the millet spray!

once they had enough, the moved back up to their favorite corner in the cage.

after lunch, i spent another 2 hours or so reading to them, singing to them and playing happy parakeet noises from youtube.com to them. they responded quite well to the parakeet noises. they were again hungry and came to the bottom of the cage. this time i took a shorter millet spray and edged myself even closer to the cage. i held out the millet and they again started eating. while they ate, i slowly pushed the millet more and more into the cage until my fingers were almost touching the cage. they kept on eating. well, the blue one anyways...the yellow/green one is a little more scared and when that one realized my fingers were a little too close for comfort, it moved to the favorite corner.

the blue one seems more daring and more dominant. i've seen both of them eating the millet and all of a sudden, the blue one would strike out at the yellow one to have it back off.

they have also preened themselves in my presence, and i plan to move a little closer to the cage each day. they seem quite comfortable with my presence, so i am happy about that. they haven't seem to be very skiddish from the start aside from normal stress brought on by the new surroundings. they haven't yet flown in a chaotic flight from being frightened. i can tell they are frigtened by watching their breathing.

i find that turning off lights, closing all drapes and wearing dark clothing helps to keep them calm when i need to clean out their cage and refill food and water bowls. they stay still and i try not to make much noise and move as slowly as possible.

as i write this, both birds are sitting in their favorite corner on one foot! that's the first time i am seeing them in this position. i think these budgies are really great birds and with a very calm, patient, loving person they can become people-friendly. it's been a while since i've worked with parakeets, but seeing how things are going, within 2 - 3 months, i think they can become hand-tame.

it maybe just me (being around 2 green cheeks and a yellow naped amazon) but these guys look rather small for parakeets. i could be wrong. while feeding them millet, i tried to look at their eyes to see if maybe they are young budgies, but from what i could access, they already have the light ring around their irises. i am also questioning if these two budgies are a male/female pair. i have a suspicion that they are both males, based on the color of the cere, but being that i haven't been too close to them yet, i have recheck this tomorrow. i also don't think they are bonded. they don't usually sit very close to eachother, as a bonded pair would. they would both sit in the same corner, but they don't lean up against each other.

tomorrow morning, i will try to feed them some fresh stuff. i will give them some of what i feed my birds in the morning (a mix of fresh soybeans, beak appetite, beans, broccoli, cilantro, persimmon fruit, pureed carrots - baby food, peas, carrots). maybe i can get them to eat something other than seeds (and pellets if they do eat that from the avi cakes).