engaging in play

How do you engage your bird? What do you do, how do you do it? Wrangler is finally showing interest in playing with toys (not bird toys but i'll take it as a start) He's self entertaining for an half hour or more, and I couldnt be happier. Ive heard other owners talk about beak wrestling...how do you do it, when is it time to stop? What else do you do to actively play WITH your bird? Do they like tug? Wrangler seems to be aggressive towards his toys, and possessive too...growls at me and trys to run at my hand if im not fast enough to move past. Its the only time i see aggression from him.

It is a case of working that playtime to your parrot's personality. They all have their own characteristics and what is good with one is not necessarily received well by yours?

We can if the mood is right play a kind of ball rolling game with Plum but if Wrangler is possessive he wont play that type of game well. Observe his strengths and you will come up with something.

Ideas: Peek a boo or hide n seek?

Peek-a-boo is always a fun game. I think I enjoyed playing it more than my conure did. They find random games to play, Rio had a game where i had to catch whatever he threw off a shelf or side or whatever. IF I caught it he would bob and make a happy chirp, if I didn't catch it he would lean down looking at the dropped item and give it a quick screech to let me know I didn't catch it. Now I was not normally informed if he was playing this game so I would need to keep an eye on him if his bottle cap was around (the usual item for this game) if he was in the air with it then I knew he was looking for a place to to begin playing.

Just find whatever they seem to enjoy doing and what they will let you join in with

BB and I thumb wrestle. He usually initiates it by sitting on my hand and nibbling my thumb and I just wiggle wiggle wiggle it He gets into it..yelling at it..chattering away. Sometimes he gets TOO into it and can give a nip. It might last 3 or 4 minutes then he stops and I then cup him in my hand and give him kisses while he tells me BB a good boy..its cute lol

http://www.parrotforums.com/cockatiels/67056-thumb-wrestlin.html

Jim

AmyMyBlueFront said:

BB and I thumb wrestle. He usually initiates it by sitting on my hand and nibbling my thumb and I just wiggle wiggle wiggle it He gets into it..yelling at it..chattering away. Sometimes he gets TOO into it and can give a nip. It might last 3 or 4 minutes then he stops and I then cup him in my hand and give him kisses while he tells me BB a good boy..its cute lol

http://www.parrotforums.com/cockatiels/67056-thumb-wrestlin.html

Jim

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I swear you and Tropical are conspiring to get my to join the Cockatiel family haha, it's so nice to hear that BB is being a good little mischief maker after having to put up with that horrible medicine!

Great advice and examples above. As K said, it depends on your bird's individual personality. Bixby used to LOVE finger-boxing. Jolly enjoys it sometimes as well. But I never engage Maya in that sort of play, as her "kill switch" has a hair trigger and she gets waaaaaaay too easily stimulated. Lol!

But pay attention to his body language and Wrangler will eventually let you know what he finds fun.

so what exactly is finger boxing? im looking for ideas to try with him. Peek a boo sounds pretty simple...hiding your face behind something and then popping out?

coopedup said:

so what exactly is finger boxing? im looking for ideas to try with him. Peek a boo sounds pretty simple...hiding your face behind something and then popping out?

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For peekaboo, I put my hand between Bumble's face and mine and when I move my hand, I say peekaboo and she says "PEEK." She's also been watching another Parrotlet on YouTube whose human says 1-2-3 and puts a tissue over his head and he says peekaboo. I tried that version today and she got that one too, so lots of ways to play. [emoji3]


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coopedup said:

so what exactly is finger boxing? im looking for ideas to try with him. Peek a boo sounds pretty simple...hiding your face behind something and then popping out?

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While perched on one of my hands, Jolly does battle with the other. My goal is to lightly tap him anywhere on his body with my finger, and his is to lunge at said finger and catch it (gently) with his beak. It's basically a contest of speed, reflexes and control for both of us. He has to trust that I'll slow my "strikes" at the last second so it's only a light touch, and I have to trust that he'll only gently catch my finger in his beak rather than slice it open.

It's that last part Maya has trouble with once she gets all stimulated. And unfortunately, her reflexes and instinct for striking are far superior to Jolly's... and Bixby's before him. Lol!

It can be challenging, at least for me at first, to engage eclectus parrots in play. They seem to be a much more studious, watch every movement, hang on/near you, type creature, and have less of the "goof off" gene of a lot of other parrots have.

I felt like Matisse was missing out, so I started doing more physical things with him, that he hated in the beginning until he started to trust me more, and now has fun with the little "rough play" from time to time.

Once I got him comfortable with laying on his back, or hanging upside down from my fingers, we went from there. Now when I lay him on his back on the palm of my hand, he immediately releases my finger (before it was a death grip). I "throw him in the air like that, up and down, but not letting him go. I can tell he likes it (for a few times anyway), because he whistles and claps his wings afterwards and his pupils look like this (.)

He is clipped, but even when he wasn't he never flew unless he got scared. So I will hold him on my finger and say "wanna go flying?", he starts flapping his wings and I run back-and-forth in the house like a crazy person all while he screams and flaps his little heart out.

We go for short car rides through the neighboring neighborhoods, where he likes to wolf whistle at people walking their dogs, and say hello to people in the drive-through at the nearby McDonald's. I work from home, so we go usually during the weekdays or early in the morning on weekends where there's very little traffic, and I never go on any major roads or more than 2 miles from the house. He loves it so much, that the rewards outweigh the risk for me here. We sing to the radio with the windows cracked. Good times.

And of course there is shower fun. Let's just say sometimes my bathroom sounds like a rain forest.

Oh! I almost forgot our "risky business" game. I lightly hold his ankles/feet and slide him across the kitchen counter, letting go and he glides like the graceful butterfly he is. He'll run back one or two more times for another "ride", before he's over it.

Don't let anyone say that Ekkies are boring and just like to sit there. Sometimes you just have to break them out of their shell. The more you do with them, the more you can do with them.

And there are always training sessions. I use a target perch with him and do some training with treats and a clicker. He's learned to shake foot, turn around, puts his wings in the air when you point a finger and yell "freeze", give kisses, and plays dead, drops coins into a cup.

We also play tug of war with hair bands. I try to keep him active, because larger parrots can get cardiovascular issues from lack of exercise.

If your bird is used to walking around your home you could expand the peek a boo to hide n seek, all the while calling them to come find you? That is a little exercise with some game excitement tacked on.

RisingSun said:

...afterwards and his pupils look like this (.)

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I don't know why, but this made me burst out laughing! That so captures the eye-pinning look! Hilarity!

And you are absolutely right about bringing them out of their shells! Ekkies are more conservative by nature, generally speaking, than say macaws or conures. But they can be coaxed out of their natural reserve and let their hair down, so to speak. Sounds like you and your ekkie have a lot of fun together.

^ LOL Anansi! I originally typed it out as 2 eyes, but something didn't look quite......right. Needless to say it could have been mistaken for something else! You might've gotten a kick out of it, or kicked me out for lewd posting LOL!

Hahahahahahaha! The hilarity continues!

Oh, another game I play with Matisse which really helps to exercise and stretch his feet, is I hold him way up in the air way up in the air on a fist and I'll slowly rotate my wrist and expand and change the position of my fingers…kind of like a belly dancer with their hands. It forces him to pay attention to the ever changing foothold, and gives me a nice little hand massage too LOL. Then we switch hands.

If he's feeling particularly needy, and I don't have time, or patience to deal with him (it happens to all of us), i'll throw a teeny tiny amount of tiny seeds down on the bottom of his cage. Like maybe a teaspoon and I'll make sure I scatter it allllll over the bottom. That keeps him busy for almost 30 minutes because he has to find every single unopened kernel.

Salty and I will wrestle, with him on his back. I let him hold one finger with his feet, and use the other hand to part tickle him, part cover his head, part rock him back and forth, all the while telling him what a rotten bird he is, calling him a velociraptor, all sorts of pet names. He'll wrestle like that for 5 min or so, and then want to come up to my shoulder for some head scratches. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes he's in the mood, sometimes not. We also put a fair amount of playing into our training sessions too.

Inger said:

She's also been watching another Parrotlet on YouTube whose human says 1-2-3 and puts a tissue over his head and he says peekaboo.

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Is it Koolaid from Peekaboo Parrots? I watch those videos all the time! They also have an IRN named Bowie and a female parrotlet named Smokey.

plumsmum2005 said:

If your bird is used to walking around your home you could expand the peek a boo to hide n seek, all the while calling them to come find you? That is a little exercise with some game excitement tacked on.

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Ducky likes to go looking for his people around the house. Yesterday, I was upstairs with him when he heard my mom in the kitchen, took off, and zoomed right down the stairs. All I heard was the flapping of wings until I heard my mom say hi to him and I knew he had found her and landed on her head! Hide n seek definetly is a lot of fun, and sometimes the bird just can't resist flying over to check things out if he hears his human doing something interesting. Ducky is my mom's official helper!

FlyBirdiesFly said:

plumsmum2005 said:

If your bird is used to walking around your home you could expand the peek a boo to hide n seek, all the while calling them to come find you? That is a little exercise with some game excitement tacked on.

Click to expand...

Ducky likes to go looking for his people around the house. Yesterday, I was upstairs with him when he heard my mom in the kitchen, took off, and zoomed right down the stairs. All I heard was the flapping of wings until I heard my mom say hi to him and I knew he had found her and landed on her head! Hide n seek definetly is a lot of fun, and sometimes the bird just can't resist flying over to check things out if he hears his human doing something interesting. Ducky is my mom's official helper!

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That is good going Ducky, keep it up.

Ducky is a great flier and sometimes I recall him up and down the stairs to practice ascending and descending in case he ever got out. Now I can't wait for Kermit to do the same!