Birds need to play on their own

[bonita]

Paddy, my 3 yr. old rescue GCC has never learned to play alone . He will play with me straws, ring stack, chew paper but not with toys in his cage. He had a ruff life before he came to me (a yr. ago). Since I am retired I'm available Emmy and Paddy are both spoiled. Emmy played when we first got her not much now. They are both out about 25% of the day. Both have plenty of toys in cage but ignore them. Any Suggestions? Bonita

 

[Timothy]

add a touch of fruit juice to some of the plastic/metal toys (and clean every couple hours) that always worked for me. (touch it to his beak to he tongues it to see how it tastes) experiment with what juice he likes best (you can use a clean spray bottle for the fruit juices, i use juicy juice or store brand. Never use a spray bottle that has ever had chemicals in it.

For some wood toys, i usually get pine. you can find some untreated pine shims at your local hardware store, what you want to do is make some holes in these shims, cut them to size, and take some unsweetened kool-aid packets, and mix a little bit of water with them, so you have a liquidy paste, and soak your wood in it for an hour or so. (you want it like 50x concentrated compared to what you would drink)

Dont add sugar.

this will flavor the wood and your bird might be more likely to play with it/chew it up. (which is for beak health, and entertainment)

Again show him and let him tongue it. i guarantee he wont set it down ^^

 

[bonita]

Dear Timothy, Thank You so much I never would have thought of something like that. Really clever! Bonita

 

[veimar]

What kind of toys do you have? Maybe the don't resemble the ones he had in his previous life (if he had any)? I experimented with many different toys before I found the ones Parry liked. He liked most of all the ones he can destroy - made of fiber and ice-cream sticks, and his favorites were the attacking toys which he fought with making funny noises and getting really angry at them bumping back to him. Now he has other birds so he doesn't play with toys.