I have a beautiful little blue budgie that I bought at 12 weeks old in January, now about 7 months old, female, I think. Within the first day of bringing her home from Petsmart she would sit on my finger or shoulder. Over the past two months however she has become finger shy to the point that she runs away from my hand so long as she is in her cage.

When I finally get her on my finger and take her into another room she is quite friendly and will even sit on my shoulder while I am cooking or brushing my teeth etc.

If she goes for a little flight and lands anywhere but her cage she will walk several feet and jump on my finger.

Is there any way to get her to be more receptive while still in or on her cage? She won't try any treats that I have offered and I'm at a loss.

I don't think this is finger shyness, since she doesn't seem to be afraid of the finger anywhere else. It sounds like she's refusing to step up in the cage because she wants to stay in the cage.

Is there anything in the cage that she might perceive as a mate? If there is, that's probably the reason she doesn't want to leave, and she might be more willing to come out if you take this object out before you ask her to come out.

Is she exhibiting any nesting behavior, like tearing up the cage paper or sitting on the floor in the corner? Hormone reduction techniques might help in that case.

Do you take her out of the cage every day or is it less frequent than that? A bird that doesn't get out too often may be reluctant to leave the cage at all. The solution to that is to let her out more frequently.

In any case, you want to make sure she has fun while she's out of the cage so she'll start wanting to come out. I usually recommend food bribery, but since she's not accepting treats from you right now you'll have to figure out a different way to entertain her, for example some kind of toy that she really likes.

If there's a special food she likes (millet spray for example) she can gradually learn to take this treat from your hand. There's an article on food bribery at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=28661 that I posted on another board. It's aimed at cockatiels but the same technique will work for budgies.

my lovebirds are the same way, they dont like to step up near their cages but will step up and sit with me in another room mine are cage aggressive and mango has his "girlfriend" in his cage (his ball!) so he doesnt like really having me around his cage either.

welcome to this forum