Captive Foraging for Parrots

Hello community! I just wanted to share some recent videos I took of my own parrot pals foraging in their cages (indoors and outdoors). My macaws have caught on that if they shake the foraging toys continually, they can go down to the bottom of the aviary and feast! So that is what they've been doing lately.



This video is of my parrots foraging in their indoor cages. My rose breasted cockatoo is using this leather foraging nut toy. While my Grey is using one of the Spinning Mazes.

In my outdoor aviary I have my macaws who keep busy all day long with these things! They literally do not get food dishes of food unless it's fresh veggies/fruits that I can't put into a foraging toy, it's great. Here is some video of them outside foraging...



I actually put other smaller toys into the foraging toys to make it harder to get to the food because my parrots are "pro" foragers! Love everything I've seen here so far! Enjoy.

PS: I recommended this great community on my little wordpress blog, too!

I recently bought my caiques the CFS carousel forager, which is a contraption made of clear plexiglass with four separate compartments, each of which opens slightly differently. A couple doors flip open in different directions, one swivels, and one slides. To add to the challenge, the whole thing rotates.

When we were in the store one of the employees walked over and said, "What kind of birds do you have?" When we said we had caiques, she cautioned, "My Amazon can't figure that toy out." We reassured her that our birds would have no problem with it, and sure enough, the first day I put it in their cage they had all four compartments open and had chowed down on the goodies. I would actually call this a good "advanced beginner" foraging toy - it's certainly harder than the toys where the bird just has to reach through the bars to get to the food, but it's not super-difficult either, like the 2-key treasure chest or the Rings of Fortune.

My birds really like this toy. Daedalus can get the compartments open in no time, but Icarus finds it more challenging. He is usually too preoccupied by trying to lick the food through the plexiglass to open the compartments. ;)

I should mention that this toy is great for small birds, but I'd call it too flimsy for any bigger or more destructive bird. It would be pretty easy for a medium beak to snap off one of the little doors, especially the swiveling one.

Here are a few videos of my birds playing with the toy. (Sorry for the wretched lighting!)

This weekend while on a trip I stopped by a big parrot store to pick up some new toys for my caiques. Last time I was there I picked up a Creative Foraging Systems "Food and Treat Dispenser," a clear polycarbonate box with multi-sectioned cardboard inserts that could be filled with pellets and other dry foods, beads, etc. The parrots have to rip into the box to get at the goodies, section by section.

My birds managed to break the polycarbonate box within a few months, but it was such a great toy that I bought another one this time. I also picked up some of the other Creative Foraging Systems toys.

The one I've tried so far is the Treat Carousel, a big, rotating polycarbonate contraption with four different compartments in which to hide treats. Each compartment's door opens in a different way: some flip up, some slide, some swivel. They're not particularly hard to open, but I like the fact that this one toy has several small compartments instead of one big one. It adds a level of challenge that's missing from a lot of toys.

While my partner and I were in the store holding this toy and pondering our other options, a store employee approached us and said, "What kind of bird do you have?" We told her we had two caiques, and she said, "Oh, this might be too hard for them. My Amazon hasn't figured it out yet. We assured her that our guys were up to the challenge.

Sure enough, the day after we got home I loaded the Treat Carousel up with foraging packets and a couple of almonds in the shell. By the time I got home from work, all four doors were open and nothing was left inside but crumbs. Success!

Still, I'd probably call this an intermediate foraging toy, especially for smaller, caique/conure-sized birds. It's clear plastic, which lets the birds see that there are treats inside, but it requires some dexterity and persistence to get the doors open while the thing rotates.

I'll try to take a video of my birds playing with it so that you can get a sense of the size and shape and how it works.

I also give two huge thumbs up to the CFS Sphere Foraging Device. This is easy for birds to figure out but challenging to get the food out. (That is, it's not a one-trick pony; even once they've figured out how to get the food out it still makes them work for it.) It works for dry foods (e.g. pellets) and wet foods (e.g. mash, bird bread) and is very easy to clean.

I also bought the CFS Multi-Drawer Foraging Device, but I haven't tried it out yet. I'll report back when I do.

Here's a video of my caiques foraging for a walnut in the shell inside a wire treat cage:



The things I do to keep those feathermonkeys occupied!

Here's a video of my caique boy, Icarus, playing with a foraging toy made from a wiffle ball stuffed with newspaper-wrapped treats (small pieces of dried fruit and nuts, individual pellets, etc):



And another video of both birds playing with the wiffle ball forager:

Hello, captive foragers! Long time no post! :)

In addition to my birds' normal diet, I often give them a hanging skewer of veggies. Some veggies they LOVE to eat (peppers, carrots, beets) and some they don't (broccoli, celeriac, radishes).

Normally when I put slices of the hated veggies on their skewer, they just ignore them and I end up feeding them to the rabbit at the end of the day.

However, I decided to turn this into a foraging opportunity! I cut two slices of celeriac and spread peanut butter on one of them, then layered the other on top to make a "sandwich." I stuck a couple of these sandwiches on the skewer along with the veggies they like. They aren't eating the celeriac, but they are ripping it to pieces to get at the peanut butter inside!

In the past this trick sometimes eventually encourages them to actually eat the stuff. After all, they've already got a chunk of it in their mouth. Sometimes they realize it doesn't taste half bad.

As promised, here's a video of Trouble's cage and setup as it is now. Please ignore the weird whinging noises, that's our dog trying to get me to let her inside haha.


What I've done with the dish you can see him at and the little coop cup up higher is covered them in newspaper and used masking tape to stick it down so he has to rip through the paper before getting to the food. It's very simple, but it takes him some time and he has to eventually pretty much remove it to get everything. In that container he has his cooked stuff, and in the higher one he has some lentils and mung beans.

Up the top is his coop cup, cuttlefish and his cholla branch which is getting a bit tatty at this point. He also has a holey round thingie (forget the name haha) which I stick stuff in sometimes - I need to replace that fairly soon too. Behind that is his Disks Galore toy, which is new (you can see where he's been chewing) and his barrel of fun. Hidden inside the barrel at that point was a nutriberry, which has since been eaten. XD

Next you can see his water bowl/bathing dish and his foraging folly. Then there's a blue dish which is filled with some pellets, some bird-safe kitty litter, some beeds and some foot toys. Next is his happy hut and skewer with some vegies on it (carrot, capsicum and pumpkin today I believe), and his spiral perch which is a rope perch I got from Crazy Clarks and shaped to look kind of like a boing. Then you can see a little cane finch nest that I put most of his foot toys in and his foraging wheel.

I mentioned in my previous post to this community that I'd ordered some new toys. They arrived on Monday, so I thought I'd let you all know what I got and how Trouble is going with them.

For those in Australia, they were all purchased from Friendly Bird Inn which has some toys and stuff that are kind of hard to find in Aussieland.

I got Trouble some vine rings which he is enjoying after a small amount of uncertainty. They're great distractors for when he becomes too interested in 'preening' my ears or freckles as well, and we can play a kind of 'tug of war' with them. Lisa (the owner of the shop) also included some wee plastic nut-and-bolt fiddler foot toys that aren't listed on the website that he's been having a grand old time with too.

The most visually impressive toy I got him was a large Foraging Folly. This toy is seriously impressive - it has great chewy bits all over it, and the plastic chain is something that he enjoys licking at. He's still a bit wary of actually hopping onto it (he's not had a toy that moves under him before) but he's had fun pulling some of the chewy bits out and throwing them around. The bonus is that once removed they can either be put back in or used as foot toys themselves. It's also great for hiding small treats in.

I also got him a Disks Galore toy. Trouble gets a bit frustrated when chewing things because a lot of the toys available here aren't wood that he can decimate easily. I actually got this toy more for the leather since he enjoys that than the wood, but the wood used is actually soft enough for him to really have a good go at - there are several disks that are looking rather well-chewed at the moment, haha. Unfortunately the toy is no longer listed, which is a pity - I was considering getting one for my budgies!

Now the foraging toys. The first one I got him was the Foraging Carousel. This is designed for a larger bird than Trouble and as such is only used under supervision, since I worry about him getting a foot or beak caught and doing himself a damage. Having said that, it's one that Trouble has a lot of fun trying to figure out while he's out on my lap. Eventually and with some help from Mum he usually manages to get what he's after, and with time and some patience I think he'll be able to figure out how to open at least some of the compartments himself. A larger bird would most certainly have an easier time with it.

His last one - and the one getting a whole lot of use at the moment - is the Foraging Wheel. It's also designed for larger birds but that isn't stopping Trouble, and it's one he can have in his cage without supervision. It's taken him a few days to figure out how it works (and how frustrating was it to see nutriberries he couldn't get at?!) but he's starting to figure it out and have a lot of fun with it.

Here's a video of Trouble with the Foraging Wheel, taken today. :D

Hello everyone!

I've lurked around this community for a while now, and thought it might be a good idea to join and introduce myself.

My introduction to parrots was with Squee, the rainbow lorikeet in my icon. He originally came from a group of rainbows that lived near where I was at the time - he had PBFD, and I cared for him for two years until he died.

My second parrot was the one that gave me my introduction into foraging, Jedidah. She was a green-cheeked conure and I was her third home. She was a chronic feather mutilator (she'd chew the feathers to bits, not mutilate), was very needy and dependant and at the time I got her didn't know how to play with toys. I introduced foraging to help her deal with that. She was stolen only a few months after I got her, but at that point she had new feathers growing in that she at that point hadn't touched.

I now have Trouble, a green-cheeked conure. He's very clever and a big ratbag, and is currently enjoying a lot of his foraging opportunities. I also have Anath, a budgie who is a midget and has some bone issues along with curvature of the spine due to poor diet while she was in the nest. I'm also 'primary carer' for my brother's budgie, Tristan. They're also being slowly introduced to foraging.

Here's a (very bad quality) video showing Trouble and his first 'commercial' foraging toy. This is his second or third attempt at it - you can see how clued in he is when it comes to his food at times, haha.


I've recently ordered some new toys including a couple that have only just become available in Australia, so once they arrive hopefully I will have some more videos to show.

To keep my two busy beaks occupied during the day, I make "foraging packets" out of squares of newspaper or phone book pages, which I crumple around various items: individual pellets, bits of dried fruit, slivers of nuts, etc. To make things more interesting (and increase the amount of food per work), my partner and I started adding in non-edible items like mini pinecones and pony beads.

Today I have the birds at work with me, and I discovered that Daedalus has developed the ability to determine whether the newspaper packet contains a bead or a treat simply by squeezing it in her beak. She simply drops the bead packets to the floor unopened.

Cheeky bird! I will have to think up a more clever plan. ;)

Cheap Idea put into action--



I gave Red an egg carton with 4 in the shell walnuts in it, and challenged him to dig them out. He watched me shut it with walnuts in it. This is a short video of him getting his first walnut vs. me just handing it to him.

I am a collector of foraging toys for my parrots, and am always looking for new good ones to add to the collection. I'd love to hear what other folks' birds' favorite foragers are - hopefully I'll find something new!

Here is a list of some of my birds' favorites.  I have two caiques, so these are all appropriate for small to medium birds (although many come in different sizes):

The Barrel o' Fun
Pyramid Puzzle (I use the small; I worry about the size of the holes on the large one)
Treasure Chest (Icarus' favorite!)
SS Hanging Cage (I have several variations on this)
Birdy Plunk (I have the hanging version)
Spinning Maze (Daedalus' favorite)
Any kind of pinata (Daedalus' other favorite)
"Peanut" Toy (Mine is shaped like a peanut, but same idea.)
Creative Foraging Systems' Starter Kit
Paradise Toys' Foraging Sphere
Popoutz bird feeders. (These are made for wild birds, but my guys LOVE them.)

Your turn! What are your birds' favorite foragers? 

I originally posted this to parrot_lovers, and it was well received so I thought I might post it here for others! Even though I suspect that most of the members here, are also members of the other, so this will be a repeat post for many... apologies for that!!!

Basically, all I did was grind up some of the reptile coconut fiber bedding and put some of his regular seed into it to sprout. I also put in some of the millet seeds that were all at the bottom of the bag. The container is a dog bowl that I bought for a dollar, so all in all, its a pretty inexpensive and safe foraging exercise which my p'let, Bonsai, LOVES. My hamster, Hamlet, also enjoys it too so its win-win! Bonsai is particularly hilarious when he gets right in, digging and making an unholy mess! LOL

I'd like to string some raisins, popcorn and dried cranberries to hang in Banjo's cage as a foraging toy, and was wondering how best to do that safely. And advice would be appreciated!

I wanted to make a fun foraging toy for my recently inherited cockatiels, but i'm broke. haha. So i looked in my recycling bin and craft room and came up with something ugly but works! :)



x-posted to craftyrecycling and captiveforaging  :)

 

The wonderful Squawk Store is closing, and everything in stock (not including items shipped directly from the manufacturer) is 25% off. If you order over $100 of merchandise, shipping is free. This place has the BEST selection of foraging toys I've ever seen, plus lots of other really great stuff. Get it while you can!


This summer The Squawk Store is closing its doors for good. As a small family business, we can only run smoothly as our family does. Due to a divorce, we are having serious life changes that do not allow for this project's continuation. We are sad that we cannot continue being a part of your lives in this way,
but Squawk and Howl Pet Sitting will continue serving the parrots of the greater Bay Area.

Our loss is your gain as we place our inventory on sale. All items that are stocked in our store (not manufacturer delivered drop-ship items) are on sale as we clear out our warehouse. Currently, these items are 25% off! Wanting that expensive gym or toy but didn't wanna plunk down so much green? Now is your chance!

Note: If you by chance order an item that we run out of, you will be promptly refunded for that item, as we are not creating backorders.

And! Spend $100 or more and get free shipping by entering the code "firesale" in the discount code box and all shipping fees will be taken off in the final stages of checkout. (Be sure to enter this code in the discount code/coupon box, not the comments box to receive your discount.)

And speaking of the comments box, thanks to all of you for saying lovely things to me in this time of transition and great confusion. I am deeply grateful to my wonderful customers.

Thanks again for being a part of the Squawk Flock!

x-posted.

I've found that grey striped sunflower seeds fit perfectly into a large wiffle ball... slide in pretty easy but are hard to get out. I stuffed a bunch into a wiffle ball and Tara is going nuts. I got my seeds at Parrot Island, they are cheap and organic.

http://parrotisland.mainsecureserver.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=85&products_id=462

With two flighted caiques, sometimes I just need a way to get them to settle down and be quiet for a few minutes! I've come up with a nifty trick to do just that: Give them a nut.

I buy bulk mixed nuts in the shell, then use a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer to punch a small hole in the shell of each walnut, Brazil nut, pecan, and hazelnut. (The almonds they can open by themselves!)

When I need to occupy the birds for a while, I'll pull out a nut for each of them, call them over, and give them the nuts. Walnuts only take about 5 minutes for them to crack open and pull out, but a Brazil nut can keep them occupied for a long time!

(The usual disclaimer applies: nuts are a high-fat food, so they should be given sparingly, particularly to small birds.)

I know some people have trouble finding foraging toys for their smaller birds. There are more toys out there that work than you think! I got one recently that's working out pretty well, with a little modification.



Note: seeds are not a common food item in this house. I used them this time to encourage the birds to explore the toy, which they saw for the first time today. I'll probably fill this one with veggies and/or sprouts (since it's so easily washed), or their usual pellet and dry foraging mix most of the time.

Further ideas for modifying this toy: Since one row of balsa is so easy to break through, two rows is a better idea. Leafy greens, paper, or shredders can be woven through the balsa. The inside could be stuffed with shredded paper mixed with treats, to make finding the goodies even more difficult.

(Crossposted to captiveforaging, parrot_lovers and cockatiels)

This weekend while traveling I stopped by Parrots and Company (in Connecticut) and picked up a whole bunch of new foraging toys for my two caiques.

So far the only one I've tried out on my birds is the Barrel of Fun, made by Nature's Instinct. It's a durable, well-made, inexpensive toy (although not suited for bigger birds). My guys are pretty good at other manipulation toys, so they figured this one out very quickly. Still, it's a good toy to swap into their cage and occasionally fill with a treat to keep them guessing.



I'd recommend this toy for small to medium-sized foragers who are good at basic foraging (chewing through paper, looking inside things for treats, etc) and are ready to move to the next level, or for mid-level foragers for whom manipulating things is still a bit of a challenge.

Hey guys,
Do you think (or has anyone) made a foraging toy out of paper masher? I was thinking about why it wouldn't be such a good idea and decided just to ask here. The newspaper (providing it's black and white) won't hurt them and I don't think the floury water mix would hurt them either. And you can make all sorts of variations of shapes pretty easily. I also thought since you can put many layers to make it stronger, it would probably work well for many types of parrots and foraging levels alike. The only thing I would be careful with is making sure every layer is completely dry, or it may be a question of mouldy paper.  Any thoughts?
TIA :o)

The new version of the Parrot Enrichment Activity Book is now out! (It's in PDF format)

This book is a great collection of articles and resources for parrot owners, covering topics such as enrichment, foraging, toy making, and training. It also features photos and ideas from several members of this community and parrot_lovers. :)

Download and enjoy!

(x-posted to captiveforaging and parrot_lovers)

Hi everyone! I'm new here :) I recently got a new parrot and have decided to start him/her out right away with the captive foraging. Daiquiri is a Major Mitchell's Cockatoo. I'm sure I'll be asking advice pretty often, but I also hope to contrtibute some ideas!

Daiquiri is only 14 weeks old, and is also in the process of converting from seed to pellet. The only captive foraging we've done so far has worked pretty well! I used a cardboard tube from the inside of a cash register reciept roll and showed him/her that I put a peanut inside it. He's spent a couple of days shredding into it (I give it to him when he has time ouside of the cage)and has only just made enough of a hole it get to the peanut. To be honest s/he seemed more interested in chomping up the tube than in the peanut, but it's still fun!

I'm sure I'll get many more ideas from all you parronts out there :)

I have two peachface lovebirds: Akira, a slate hen, and Caspian, a dutch blue cock.



This is their new inside cage, because the room their other cage is in has been co-opted for the air conditioner over summer, and their usual cage doesn't fit upstairs.

This is just a hexagonal biscuit tin:



It's mostly full of "Breeders Choice" kitty litter, which is recycled paper compressed into pellet form (my avian vet specifically recommended it ;3), with some wood shavings. Sprinkled through it is two different sorts of pellets (Roudybush and Passwells), and a little bit of their seed mix, which has dried fruit and nut shavings as well as seed. There's a couple of kitty balls inside and a paper plate on top to make it a bit harder for her.



This is Akira scuttling down to sit in the door and tell me off for putting a camera inside her cage ;D



And the two of them sitting cutely on their cholla branch.



This is a bird bath, which I've been using for a while as a foraging station -this one has a base of pellets, with a little bit of kitty litter, some wood shavings, some torn up paper, and a kitty ball.

I also make up these:




I put it in the biscuit tin so it wouldn't just end up through the bars. I usually make up a few with a mixture of seed and pellets (and occasionally one with just litter or wood shavings) and tie them around the cage with twine, but I'm out of twine, so just the one in their bucket today. :)

In the background of that shot as well you can see their huge rope perch, which I've folded into a sort of sideways boing; once I've got some raffia, I'll be tying treats inside of there as well. ;)

I don't have any of the spiffy foraging toys around the place, but there's enough between those two, their little wooden bucket (soaking at the moment) and the paper packets to feed them for two or three days. Later this afternoon I'll probably put their normal food bowl back in as well, but it doesn't get much attention until everything else is exhausted. ;)

Downstairs, where their big cage usually is and my computer lives, we've got horrible cheap carpetting as well as their playpens. So before I bring them down to hang around with my partner and I, a handful of budgie seed gets scattered about the room, so they spend a couple of hours running around on the carpet looking for food.

Caspian doesn't get into it much, since Akira's a huge bully and chases him off, which is why I leave the normal food bowl in xD I worry sometimes that he'll starve to death, the way she is about her food bowl.