Adding new toys to they’re house?

How do you guys decide when your parrot is comfortable enough with a toy to add it to they’re house? Timneh is very cautious around her toys and it can be difficult to find a toy that interests her and doesn’t scare her. I think the first couple years of her life the toys were pretty much the same. I’ve fallen behind in “good” toys. CHRISTMAS was very good for Timneh and she’s got over 100 bucks in new toys. Her tree stand is cluttered with new toys and old toys that she’s been warming up too. Took Timneh a year to use her first boing. Is it alright if they’re leery of the toy but not out right scared? I have one cool toy I know she’ll love in there but I noticed she will eat her treat next to it but she gives it the hairy eyeball. Funny she never seems scared of my new stuff though. Lol

Most of toys here in the grey cage get a stinky eye or are being ignored for months on end...and all of a sudden they are THE toy...

Parrots are insane

They more or less love the foraging toys, Japie hates bongs etc/ Appie loves them it is hit and miss a lot.
Cardboard is the stuff send from heaven for all of them... (so that is easy enough).

So I completely gave up on the 'leave it around faaaaaar from the cage and move it closer and closer, outside the cage to inside etc.etc.".
I have a lot of things 'just lying around' for them to approach when they feel ready so it is more or less random when it enters the cage.
They will let me know what they think about something soon enough.
(We all know each other very well by now - so if it is not right, there is immediate action -> theirs and mine, to remedy that situation)

None of our Amazons over the years had reacted the same way to toys. But all required the time on-sight verification prior to entering their realm. Julio's approach is a combination of when during a year, to history with a type of toy. Paper rings require no pre-verification as they are like the changing of the food bowl, expected. Adding machine paper rolls, only this time of year. Likely tied to nest building. Everything else must sit and wait until he drags it off to one of his secret hiding places. Once there, introduction to any area is allowed.

There are some basic rules with Amazons, but they do not have to follow them, only we have too.

I just leave new items around the room for her to see and a week or three later I try to put them inside her cage, sometimes she’s cool with it sometimes back to the waiting area they go.

Lather rinse repeat.

Timneh has the same toys in her house forever now. She doesn’t really like chewing on any woods that I’ve found so far. Except for the bird K-bobs. She has several knot and block toys that look cool to me have been in touched for weeks in her house. I just worry if she can’t find anything that interests her she will end up plucking. Thanks for the help guys. I think I will start adding toys when she maybe still a little leery of the toy but not fill out scared. One of her new awesome larger toys, I walked into the living room with it and she went back inside her house. Lol crazy little baby.

Smokey was really never afraid of any toy. Sometimes i'd leave it on her roof top for a few says other times I just but it in her house. She'd eventually play with it or not lol. Her fav however was a stainless steel mirror,honey sticks of course and any type of paper towel roll. Amy has a number of toys and I add anew one on occasion. She has her rubber bell she inherited from Smokey that she likes to chew/kick. She has had this rope type circle thing hanging from the center of her house for YEARS and I've never seen her on it She'll chew it at times. She also likes paper rolls and those cardboard box thingies that hide treats.

BB however likes a number of toys in his house,especially the shinny dice that he beats up and yells at before going to bed. Funny critters parrots are


jim

I have to look for a stainless steel mirror great idea Jim. Timnehs favorite toy is a stainless steel Bell I would say. She sleeps on a toy actually it’s a knot and rope toy that has a block that’s about 6 or 7 inches long. She wedges one side under the top of the cage and her weight keeps it in place as she stands on the other side. We had found a coconut toy that she slept on for about a year but it started to rot and get funky. So had to put the old toy back in for her to sleep on. She still rejects these great perches I bought over a year later. I’ll keep trying as long as she’s happy I’m happy. She loves her tv shows that’s kind of a toy. Lol

If I put toys in Enzos cage she will ignore them, if the toys are outside of her cage, hanging from the ceiling etc, she will play with them. If I then put the toys back in her cage she will continue to play with them.


One toy id discourage getting is a bell, she drives me mad with hers as that is her 'Get me out of here NOW' thing. she will literally hang upside down swinging from it flapping her wings 'ding ding ding bloody ding whilst shouting DAD, COME HERE..... until i let her out.

DRB said:

I just leave new items around the room for her to see and a week or three later I try to put them inside her cage, sometimes she’s cool with it sometimes back to the waiting area they go. Lather rinse repeat.

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^this. pretty much all their toys are the hanging kind, so I hang the new toy from something about 6 feet away and judge the response. A few times, even THAT was too close, and I had to move it across the room, or even OUT of the room and only intermitantly bring it in with me, hanging from my shirt pocket.
Then gradually move it a little closer at a time, until it just seems like part of the normal environment. So far, I've never come across anything that remains permanently a hated object for my birds, but you never know.

On the up side, one of the favorite toys is the hanging three rings swing. It does have a bell at the bottom, but you can always remove it if they make too much noise with them. The Grey loves his, the Pionus isn't crazy about it but uses it at least a few times a day, lovebirds liked theirs. I never found a medium size for cockatiels; they can't get the big ones to swing easy enough, and hit their head on the smaller ones that the lovebirds used.

The number one hanging toy Enzo loves is a triangle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Large-Rope...id=1547117959&sr=8-3&keywords=parrot+triangle
She loves to fly at it so that it swings like crazy, she will hang upside down on it fighting with the frayed rope and very cutely when she is starting to roost she can swing it ever so gently by herself. I have 2 of these now hanging from the ceiling in her favourite rooms.

Kevin is funny about toys. For the most part, he considers all new things as potential enemy threats. I placed a great quality, supposed to be awesome, calcium perch in his cage (brought from the US this bird is catered to) and he refused to step on it for at least 6 months. He would go to great lengths to avoid the thing climbing as widely as he could around it. Now, he chews it, abuses it, and enjoys it.

Perjo is similar to so many CAGS, so cautious of things she’s never seen or bigger than her.

What I’ve learned in the past year or so is to replace toys she’s destroyed with the same toy a few times bc she is familiar with them and doesn’t act bashful toward the toy the second time around.

My CAG, Jack is super suspicious of change. I moved his absolute favorite perch, just cleaned it and moved it to a different location in his cage, he pouted, glared at me and refused to come out of his cage for two days. His absolute favorite toy is a set of stainless measuring cups, he hangs upside down and bangs them against the cage bars, he never seems to tire of the game.