Hello everyone I just got into birds and started with what I think is a lutino budgie. It's pretty young and i'm not sure of the sex but even after 2 months of having it it still is deathly afraid of leaving it's cage and bites all the time. Good thing I didn't go for the cockatiel lol. Also if I post a couple of pics can someone maybe help me to determine the sex as it had no band when I bought it. The breeder I got it from tried to tell me it was an albino but I think it's actually a lutino as it is bright yellow with red eyes. I do know it's only about 4 months old if anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Your bird sounds like a lutino but pictures will help. An 'albino' is a blue lutino (known as whiteface lutino in cockatiels; we have a lot of cockatiel owners here who might be confused by the change in terminology lol). The lutino mutation removes all the melanin pigment (which indirectly causes green and blue coloring), while the blue/whiteface gene removes the psittacin pigment (yellow coloring).

To get your bird to stop biting you'll need to gain its trust and teach it that the world outside the cage is a safe, fun place. Birds feel safest inside the cage because they spend most of their time there, but until they have some happy experiences outside the cage they don't know whether it's safe out there or not.

Do what you can to avoid getting bitten, there's nothing good that can come from that and every new bite just reinforces a bad habit. Food bribery is a good way to make a bird develop a friendlier attitude toward you and your hands, and it can also be used to lure a bird out of the cage. Working with the bird in an area where it can't see the cage can be very useful, because all of a sudden YOU become the safest, most familiar thing in the room.

Here are some articles on our main website that can help:
Food bribery: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... ibery.html

Biting: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... iting.html

Bird psychology: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... ology.html

Do you have any suggestions as far as a treat for bribery? My bird seems to care less about most fruits I've tried and doesn't really seem to care much for millet either.

I can't figure out how to post pics and my bird is a budgie not sure if I said that or not. The biting doesn't hurt but i'm sure it's teaching it bad habits so i'm trying to get it stopped asap.

Have you ever hung a piece of millet spray in the cage? Most birds love it but they have to learn what it is first, and it's possible that he hasn't learned. If you hang a piece in the cage, you'll know that he's figured it out when it disappears lol.

Millet spray will be the easiest treat to use if he'll go for it, because it's big and easy to see. But if he isn't interested in it we'll have to figure out something else that he likes. Do you know if he's interested in mirrors? If he is, you can use a mirror to get his attention instead of food bribery.

To post pictures, you need an account at a free photo hosting site like Photobucket. You upload the pictures to the hosting site and then post the url on this forum.

So you have to link photos then? Yes Amarillo is definitely interested in mirrors so that could be a good option. She (I believe it's a she) does eat millet but I usually get the bites and mix in with her food. One thing I found strange is she doe not seem to even touch any kind of fresh produce. I'm not sure if it's because they only fed her seed at the pet store where I got her. Do you know of anything else that she may take a liking to?

It's usually male birds who are more interested in mirrors but there are some females that like them too. To use a mirror as bait or a reward, you need to take the mirror out of the cage at least temporarily (assuming that there's one in there). As long as she has a mirror friend inside the cage she won't have any motivation to come out. You can open the cage door and put the mirror just outside the door, trying to get her to poke her head out a little bit to kiss the mirror. Once she's comfortable doing that you can move the mirror a little further out, and keep doing this until she's all the way out. You need to have a plan for getting her back in the cage though. Are her wing feathers clipped or is she fully flighted?

You can also hold the mirror in your hand for her to look at whether she's inside the cage or outside. This will help her get used to your hands and the idea that your hands deliver nice things to her.

Instead of mixing the millet bites in with her food, you can use them for food bribery. She'll still get to eat them but they'll be a special treat that comes from you instead of something she can get by herself any time she wants.

Most budgies like to eat leafy greens, although you might have to teach her to eat them. Try clipping them to the cage bars in an easy to reach place instead of putting them in a food bowl - foraging style food is more interesting than food in a dish.

If she's only eating seeds right now, that's an unbalanced diet that will cause health problems over time. But there are lots of good foods that she can learn to eat, including vegetables and pellets. If you're in the US or Canada you can easily get Nutriberries, which are nutritionally equivalent to pellets but they look like seed balls, and most birds love them.

Here's an article on the best diet for cockatiels: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... ldiet.html But it applies to budgies too - both species come from the same place and have similar diets. The main difference between them is that cockatiels can eat some seeds that are too big for budgies, like sunflower seeds. But a budgie could probably manage a sunflower seed that was already out of the shell.

Here's an article with tips on teaching your bird to eat new foods: http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... rsion.html It can take a long time for them to accept a new food so don't give up if she doesn't go for it the first time. A better diet will help her live a longer, healthier life. Your bird is still young so she might accept new foods more easily than an older bird would.

Going off of the pupil method if you know what I am talking about I believed she was female but she's OBSESSED with mirrors so i'm going to take if from her cage and try that. I'm also going to withhold millet from her regular diet as well and use it as bribery food. She used to stand in the door of her cage and then one day I bumped into her cage kinda hard and she won't come to the door anymore but she always fought to actually get her out of the cage.Her wings are clipped but I want to let them normal when they come back. I'm not sure if it's better to have them clipped or not. My wife has a relative that runs a bird rescue of sorts and she actually has birds she lets fly outside which I think is crazy seeing as how she has like conures and cockatoos and macaws and stuff.
My budgie usually flies right off my hand to her cage when I get like 5 feet from it but i'm hoping that will change. Thank God I found this website your a lifesaver. And if I've done this right here is a link to some pics beautiful isn't she?

Having clipped wings is much better for training purposes; you don't have to worry so much about the bird flying around in a panic crashing into things and possibly getting hurt or killed. Once the bird is tame it's up to you to decide whether to let the wing feathers grow back. A bird that's been clipped properly will still be able to fly a little bit so you need to try to minimize any dangers in the room. But a clipped bird that smacks into a window won't hit with nearly the amount of force that a fully flighted bird would.

It sounds like the bump to the cage scared her badly enough to make her not want to come out again. But it's good that she was eager to come out before, because once you've enticed her out she'll probably learn to love it much more quickly than a bird that always wanted to stay in the cage.

Free flying birds outdoors is risky business. Sometimes birds fly away and never come back, and sometimes birds get taken by hawks or other predators. Proper training will reduce the risks and there are online groups dedicated to free flight. But it isn't something that I would encourage anyone to do.

I'm sorry but I don't see any links!

weird it says image and has a little icon by it in my last post right after where it says pics and I can click it and it goes to that website where I uploaded them. See if you see what i'm talking about when you check again and if not i'll try again. Here's this so you can try this too. http://s42.photobucket.com/user/robert_blake1/library/?sort=3&page=1