budgie - can anyone help?

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

we aquired a budgie about three weeks ago. I've spent the past two weeks taming him, and inside the cage he is perfectly tame, will jump on/off my finger without any problems, so after a couple of weeks of me spending at least 30 mins twice a day taming him we decided to let him out, and this is where the problem arises.

Once he gets out of his cage, and initially this did take some time, he is like a wild bird and it is almost impossible to get him back into the cage. The first time we waited for him to land on the floor and then just took the top (wire part) of the cage and placed it over him with no problems, but since then he appears to have got wise to this and flies from one side of the room to the other and refuses to be caught. I've never experienced this before. I had lots of birds as a child and once they were tame they were as easy to handle outside their cage as inside. in fact i had a budgie who managed to escape from his cage, in fact he was found by a friend so had obviously escaped from somewhere else, and I was able to catch him perfectly easily despite the fact I couldn't even see him (something which always had my mum baffled). but this budgie is different. he won't get on my hand outside the cage, and he won't let me pick him up outside the cage.

does anyone have any tips? those of you with birds you let out, how do you catch them again?

You could trim his wings so that he can't fly as high. They will grow back and it doesn't hurt them but people have mixed views on doing it. What colour is he? I have a pale blue and a pale grey, they act like an old married couple!

I used to have one, he would go back in his cage if he was hungry but otherwise he liked to sit on top of the cage. Can you not just leave him out till he figures out how to get back in by himself?

bubblerock he's yellow and blue. I did consider trimming his wings and asked the vet about it and she said that by doing this I was ultimately giving him a disability. I feel that he should have some time outside his cage, although I did buy the biggest cage I could find (with dh protesting in the background that "I'm sure our budgies didn't have a cage that size when we were kids"), but even so I think that he would benefit from some exercise outside the cage, esp as he's a single budgie I wanted him to have a relationship with us iykwim, and he does, with me, but only on his terms lol.

why don't you get him a little friend? he might hate being in his cage because he's lonely. birds are 'herd' animals as it were. you might find he doesn't mind his cage if he has a lady friend!

I had a bird like this. I persevered though and he did settle down after a while. I think that once he realised he was going to be able to come out the next day and that wasn't his only chance of a break for freedom he accepted being caught more easily iyswim. A short-term solution that might work is to wait until he settles somewhere you can reach easily and then turn the light out. You might be able to grab him while you have the element of surprise! It's worked for me before, I don't think they like to fly in the dark.

manuka he does love his cage and is ve chatty etc. all the literature I've read (and I researched this well before buying him) said that it's ok to have budgies on their own if you can give them lots of attention which we do.

Pixel thanks will try turning out the light...

I seem to remember that they are less likely to talk to you if they have a lady friend?

Re the catching thing. You could try throwing a light cloth over him and picking him up from underneath it? Maybe it's just going to take more time for him to grow to trust you enough to get on your hand outside the cage.