Budgie squawking when changing his toys

[Jamiesmith1993]

Hi,
I rotate my budgies toys every week and sometimes he’s fine but other times he will continually squawks for a couple of days and will pace on his perch (wanting me to let him out). Once he is out he will also squawk as if looking for the toys and fly around frantically. This makes it extremely hard to get him back in the cage. Any suggestions?
Thanks

 

[noodles123]

Get him used to the toys before putting them in. I know we think "oh! toys! yay!", but sometimes they think "killer monster invader in my house where I am trapped".


You can get them used to a toy by leaving outside of their cage where they can see it and modeling play with it after a day or so. You can try associating it with treats (not forcing it though) and once your bird is more familiar, then introduce it.


I know they say to rotate weekly, but that would set my bird into a literal tailspin lol. She's more of a once a month new toys gal, because it takes her a long time to decide she is comfortable with what is in there.


If your bird has some known favorites, rotate those if you want, but the squawking is likely fear and it's not uncommon for birds to be really scared of new items in the environment (no matter how good your intentions)


You probably should also do a little test to see how he is still responding to you-- if you are scaring him with the toys, he may become more scared of you, so I would see if you can interact with him when he is calm and if he is showing a lot of stress/fear etc, work on building your trust back with him and wait until you guys are cool again before rotating if that is the root of the issue. I'm assuming he has more than one toy in there at a time, right? Don't get me wrong, rotating is good in many respects, but it doesn't work for all parrots and time-frames may need to be adjusted. I am glad you care enough to try and rotate though, because a lot of people wouldn't think to do so.