Keeping your ekkie entertained?

Hello,

This might seem like a silly question but to prevent your bored from getting too bored in general how engaged should they be throughout the day in an activity. I just find that unless I constantly give my ekkie something to play with throughout the day or something to do he will just sit there in his cage looking bored and wanting to come on my shoulder all the time.

I feel that I keep him generally entertained but it feels very time consuming. I wouldnt ever want him to be bored and start feather plucking.

I buy him toys from time to time but not much of them as they are expensive and he seems to get sick of them within a day or two.

I sometimes put a bunch of inedible stuff in his tin(little beads made of plastic and wood with all different shapes and colours and earrings and the sort) and that keeps him entertained for a while.

Other times I fill his cage with branches I have picked from tress outside, particularly ones with the flowers or fruits and that can keep him entertained for hours sometimes.

I take him for one small drive in the car usually once a day.

There is a tree outside of my house and I put him in there(his wings are clipped) for a while and he loves that too.

But I mean the reason I do all that is otherwise he just sits in his cage looking bored most of the day and I dont like that. But trying to keep him entertained also feels tiring and time consuming and frankly unsustainable on my part.

So I would like to know what you guys and girls do with your ekkies?

any thoughts would be appreciated. I am probably over-thinking this I know.

Hi Suley,

No, not a silly question at all. They can be hard to keep occupied sometimes!

I tend to go with toys for my guy. I know they are very expensive at the pet store but you can make some out of everyday object for really cheap. The following link is a great one for example:
Ideas « Foraging for Parrots

Kaiju spent hours tearing apart a red pepper I had stuffed with his regular food and cable-tied to the side of his cage one day. He also responds well when we play some music for him. He will sit and "sing" along, perfectly entertained.

I think it is also important to make sure their toys are rotated so they don't get too bored. I rotate mine about once a week.

With Kaiju I have found he is willing to play if he has had enough exercise in general, otherwise he can just sit there waiting desperately to come out. He does this little dance on the spot to say I need to fly around! You may want to try taking him out in the morning and letting him run around with some toys on the floor, or give him something to climb around on to expend a bit more energy.

Of course he will always prefer to spend time with you, and I know if you are in the same room he will give you the sad eyes .. can be hard to resist.

Hope this is helpful.

I found that foraging toys are the way to keep ekkies occupied during the day. Any type of hard cardboard made into small parcels will keep him occupied for a while. Also leather buckets where he has to work hard to remove the lid also works well. Place a treat, say a slivered almond in one out of five and put them in places where he has to work hard to reach them. Start off with a treat in each and as he gets the idea that there is food in there reduce the food so that only 10% of the parcels have any treats in them. The key is to make it very challenging for the bird so that he has to figure out how to reach, open or hold the item etc.
Also rotate toys on a weekly basis. They are not great chewers so will not be all that interested in big chewing toys. They really enjoy mentally stimulating toys so things like mazes with a couple of slivered almonds keeps them going for quite a while.

I used to let mine out every morning to fly around and then to shower with me. He would help to make our breakfast, help me get ready for work, watch me make foraging toys for the day etc. That would take an hour or more each morning then he used to have a nap for an hour or two every day around midday but would shout "Hello" the second that my car drove into the driveway. Then it was play time! They love to chew the buds on crepe myrtle trees. Mum wasn't impressed but a birds gotta do what a birds gotta do!

I have not found or made a foraging toy that they can't figure out in less than 15 mins but they do love them. Time spent with you is of course the best but there is already a wealth of great ideas out there if you do a search to find fun things for your parrot to occupy themselves with when you can't spent one on one time. Enrichment shouldn't be hard and certainly not so complicated that you are seeing it as a burden or unsustainable.

Jasper is alone 9 hours each day when I'm at work and he's never bored. (I keep a Skype call going so I can see him when I'm working so I know )

I put a bunch of toys in his cage and rotate all of them every 3 days. He also has a boing in there which he loves swinging on. Throughout the day he'll play with all of the toys, sleeps a bit, and talks a lot.

He knows as soon as I get home the cage is open until I go to bed. He comes in/out as he pleases and we also do a 20 min training session each evening that I know he looks forward to.

Good luck - stock up on toys, make your own, and I'm sure your birdie will be entertained throughout the day

Thanks for all the ideas. Sorry for the late reply.

I guess i am a little bit obsessive with these things and have a lot of empathy in general and cant bear the thought of my little guy living a bored/stressed life.

On a side note I am simply amazed at how many words Yoshi has learnt in his one year of life. I have counted well over 40 words that he says daily now and seems to learn a word or two every week.

He is even learning it in context saying Be Right Back or Bye Bye when people are walking away from him or when I am leaving the house.