DAY ONE WITH A SCARED FLIGHTED BUDGIE | Bringing Home a Pet Parakeet (Flighted!)

I am Sugar's original mom. I brought him home from the pet store in October 2019, and yes, I did my research. I grew up in an animal breeder/groomer home. We always had birds, reptiles, horses and big dogs. My intention with Sugar was to have a long term companion just like everyone else in my family. I wish I knew more about training him and feeding him better. I just did what my grandma did with her birds. I didn't know what I didn't know. Sugar spent his days in my home office with his cage open. He was good at stepping up and spent time on my shoulder or on my desk while I worked (7 days a week). He gave sweet kisses on the cheek. He has such a pretty singing voice and would always respond to my singing/whistling or my kids playing instruments. He tried to sound out a couple words that we were consistent with. My four kids were in and out of my office and verbally engaged with Sugar, but he was not interested in their hands entering his cage. Our situation changed drastically in 2020. We had to sell our home and move in with friends. They happened to have a well-trained budgie that had free reign of the house. Sugar made a great companion for the month we were there. After that, we were able to get into a rental that didn't have a yard for our dog, and that meant she was now 100% inside. She enjoyed Sugar's singing, but it became clear that she would do whatever it takes to make the bird a sweet snack. After ten months in that situation, we had to start looking at another move. This time, we knew we could be homeless for months and very unstable for who knows how long. Almost two years later, we are still very unstable. I could not have foreseen that our perfect white picket fence dream would fall apart and everything would be so difficult for so long. I don't regret trying to be a bird mom, but when it comes down to it, we were not the best home for Sugar anymore. When I contacted Jamie, she was gracious enough to consider Sugar for a family that was already preparing for the perfect bird. My kids and I delivered him a few weeks later. I cried in the car on the way home because I felt like a failure. Because I couldn't live the dream the way I wanted to. I read through the comments, and I was not surprised to see a few judges. It is what it is. But I am so grateful to see how many people follow and learn from this channel because they want to be better. BirdTricks is amazing! I am also so happy for Sugar and his new family.

I always love how bold parakeets are for being such tiny birds.

Best news I could wake up to! Another budgie! I personally only have budgies so this is a treat! I wish you lots of luck with Sugar! ❤️💕

I sell budgies to uneducated individuals at petsmart and always send them to your channel I actually educate people on the reality of keeping a bird. A toddler that screams, makes messes constantly, and needs supervision. I refuse to clip birds wings (I make other employees do it) and educate about the truth about clipping a birds wings. All our birds come in flighted so I always emphasize about the benefits of not clipping your bird.

PS I’ll be heartbroken if this little guy is tamed and knows how to bond but goes back to a home where he isn’t loved or played with. I hope they will love him or re-home him in the end.

When I was a kid in the 70's pet stores were everywhere and budgies cost 2 dollars. They were considered "disposable" pets back then, like hamsters or goldfish; give one to the kiddies and be lucky if it lasted a month or two. I guess I never really abandoned that mindset. I'm glad to see that they are treated like the intelligent animals they are these days.

I screamed when I saw this! Literally. I’m training someone’s Budgies and have been waiting for 3 years to get this video and a bird training job! 😆

This video is so needed! People bring these little treasures home and then the poor things sit and languish when the task of training becomes apparent. People don't know what to do or what to expect. Thanks to Bird Tricks, I learned so much and developed an awesome relationship with my budgie who was the most timid and scared thing ever. I taught her trust and not to fear and even some tricks. It took over six months! But truly a labor of love and one of the accomplishments I'm most proud of.

thats amazing...its cute how ur daughter didnt want to leave his side...sugar is now getting the life he deserves....

The voice you use to speak to birds is so soothing. 😌

As someone who is 6 months in to training process of a flighted budgie, this is a great resource to starting that trust and very different content to the Blueberry experience. I want to say that as our bird was new from a breeder, he was fearful of millet spray and would not eat it for about two weeks, even after removing his food. This was disheartening because most videos show this as the first step in developing trust. We found target training with a chopstick with verbal encouragement worked better in the initial weeks. He then moved to eating loose seed from our palm. When our bird started to become interested in the millet spray, training moved a lot quicker. I thought it was worth mentioning to try other things, if some are not working for you. We also stuck to making sure our bird wasn’t without food for more than 2-3 hours. When people are learning how to look after a new bird, times like this should be specified in information videos to keep the bird safe.

For a budgie Millet always has value. I have never been able to get my budgie to eat meals so she always has food but millet or seed always gets a response. It’s refreshing to see that maybe I did train my budgie correctly because I didn’t know what I was doing and when I first got her I did the exact same thing Jamie did with the millet and just having her eat the millet. I always felt like that was the low skill way to do it but apparently it was correct. Either way she’s glued to me now she actually follows me around the house and climbs all over me which is exactly what I wanted.

This is so great! Budgies need us humans to see this! This was my experience, with my flighted, baby budgie. I did it without anyone helping and I can see so many benefits to having the whole family involved. Younger siblings (anyone) can sit next to the cage and read or eat or any quiet project. The time and patience at this starting point pays off! So excited to see his progression and the first "trick" training session! Have fun, Capri!

This was so cool to watch! I have a budgie who mostly stays in her cage (although I keep it open almost all day) and it's so interesting to see how similar Sugar's body language is to her's.

Before I knew anything about birds and was maybe 10 years old? I used that exact cage for my cockatiel. Once I had a laptop and access to information, he got upgraded to a huge cage! I'm sure sugar will be thankful when she has the same thing happen

Insane talent you have taming these budgies. WOW Once they fully understand that you are ZERO threat to them is the key. After that they give SO much in return, it is worth the patience.

Sugar reminds me so much of my budgie. I just wanna rave really quick so don't mind me, but we got my budgie onto their natural feeding system awhile ago and he is having a SWELL time. He beeps!! He does these high pitched beeps when eating because he loves it and I love it and I love him. He's a brat baby. But a brat baby who beeps, it's amazing.

I adopted a few month old budgie from an abusive home where he had his foot broken by being grabbed and I was able to convince him to hop on my finger today after weeks of working with him! thank you so much for the guidance and helping me keep up confidence working with him even when we had very little progress 😭​​😭​😭​

And Capri OMG she is too adorable ❤️ and she is soo good with birds and I love all your birds

Oh my good fricken goodness, Capri's immediate enthusiasm and love for Sugar honestly brought tears to my eyes!! That's sweet beyond words, seriously!!