Detailed Explanation of Methods and Techniques for Training Budgerigars to Talk

The budgerigar is a very common parrot. If you have paid even a little attention to parrots, you are certainly not unfamiliar with the budgerigar. Because the budgerigar's feathers are very beautiful, many people think that budgerigars cannot imitate human speech, but this is actually not the case. Budgerigars are also very intelligent and affectionate birds; as long as the training method is appropriate, you can still get your budgerigar to talk.

Can Budgerigars Talk?

1. Most parrots in the small parrot category can talk, such as budgerigars, cockatiels, and lovebirds, all of which have fairly strong talking ability. This is because birds in the parrot category have the same vocal cords and sound-producing organs, which are relatively suited to producing various sounds. In fact, budgerigars could imitate human speech in the early stages of domestication, and many records show that they have a strong imitative ability. It is said that in the early 20th century, a budgerigar kept by someone escaped, and because it kept reciting the family's phone number along the way, it was caught and returned.

2. Now this ability has clearly declined, and it is already difficult to see budgerigars that can talk, possibly because under artificial breeding, the pressure of reproduction has decreased, causing the bird's imitative ability to degenerate. Early budgerigars had a stronger imitative ability than those today and were more able to talk. But most budgerigars now cannot talk, reportedly because generation-by-generation breeding plus changes in living conditions have led to the degeneration of this ability. However, there is still a portion of budgerigars that can talk (the proportion is not large).

Preparation for Teaching Budgerigars to Talk

1. You should choose a subadult male budgerigar. The reasons are as follows: (1) Subadult individuals (those after leaving the nest but before sexual maturity) are relatively more likely to accept new things, so the success rate is relatively high. (2) Male budgerigars are much stronger than female budgerigars in their ability to imitate calls (imitating the calls of other birds and some sounds, including speech).

2. The bird to be trained cannot be kept in the same room as birds of other species (except for teacher birds), and the bird being taught to talk should be kept in a separate cage.

3. It is widely believed that teaching a parrot to talk requires twisting its tongue, but this is a misconception that only causes harm to the parrot. In fact, whether or not the tongue is twisted has no scientific basis or significant effect on a parrot learning human speech. This is because the sound-producing organ of most birds is the "syrinx" located at the lower end of the trachea where the bronchi branch, and sound is produced by the contraction of attached muscles, whereas the human vocal cords are at the upper end of the trachea.

Methods for Teaching Budgerigars to Talk

1. Time: Early morning is best, because birds are most active in calling in the early morning, and at this time the bird has not yet eaten its fill, so the teaching effect is better.

2. Environment: It must be quiet, with no clamor or conversation, otherwise it is easy to distract the bird, and it may also learn sounds it should not learn. Therefore, it is best to choose a quiet indoor space for teaching.

3. Content: You must persist in teaching the budgerigar to talk every day, and teach it phrase by phrase. First teach simple words, such as "hello," "goodbye," and so on, and do not teach two sentences at the same time. When teaching it to say words, your pronunciation must be clear and not indistinct, so that the words the bird learns will be relatively clear. (A commonly used method is to use a myna, a hill myna, or a common starling that can already talk as a teacher bird, letting the budgerigar learn from it, which can save a lot of manpower and is relatively fast. If you do not have a teacher bird, you can choose a repeat reader or teach it yourself, and the effect is equally good.)

Summary: Whether a budgerigar can talk is related to individual differences among birds. Not every budgerigar can successfully learn to talk. The success rate for budgerigars learning to talk is about 22% (calculated based on budgerigars that have been learning to talk for about one year), so you should be mentally prepared for failure.