Meet Galileo, the newest member of our family. He’s a baby budgie (parakeet) that I’m hand training. It’s only been a few days, and I’ve managed to build his trust to the point where he will perch on my finger.
Parakeets are extremely social birds and easily get lonely, so while theoretically you can just lock one up in a cage and leave the pet alone, you really shouldn’t. Your bird will end up depressed. A lot of people will counter this by putting another bird in the cage. However, if you do this, the chance of your parakeet learning to talk drops to nil. They’ll just chirp at the other bird instead of attempting to parrot your speech.
Instead, this is a huge responsibility. I need not only to be Galileo’s parent but his best friend. In addition to taking him out of the cage and training him, I spend lots of time hanging out with him, reading my writings and what I’m studying aloud to him, and playing music for him.
Skyspook bred parakeets with his mother, and he has 2 cockatiels himself, kept in a cage in a different part of the house, so he’s been an invaluable resource in the process while taking a hands off approach so that I can have the satisfaction of doing it myself.