Minimalism for the avian mind

Kiwibird

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*Not sure where to put this thread, so I put it here since I believe it is more related to behavior than toys.

So Kiwis VAST toy collection is about to become significantly sparser. My growing concerns with these softer ā€œhardā€ plastics being used in newer baby toys (his favored types of toys) paired with his new intolerance to food dyes and his utter disinterest in most ā€œparrot toysā€ means the bulk of his current toy collection is going to be thrown out and healthier toy options are...limited. I have found some possible alternatives made of stainless steel and natural wood plus a few plastic/acrylic toys that seem durable/worthwhile enough to keep. But what Iā€™m going to be able to offer that isnā€™t dyed and heā€™ll actually play with pales in comparison to what he has now.

Seeing as literally no where suggests ever giving a parrot less toys (pack em in as many as possible is standard advice for birds), Iā€™ve turned to what parents of small children have to say about thinning out/simplifying their kids toy collections for context of what I might expect from Kiwi moving forward. Iā€™m honestly pretty surprised by what Iā€™ve found. Post after post after post saying that when the number of toys a child has was drastically cut and there was careful consideration into the minimal amount of toys that were kept, children become calmer and better behaved. Apparently, in babies/toddlers/small children (so brains of a similar mental capacity to our birds), too many toys overwhelmed and overstimulated them to the point of driving bad behavior. Less toys of simpler varieties made for better behaved and less hyperactive kids.

This makes me curious if some of the bad behaviors people report in their parrots could be lessened by simplifying their toys? Does a bird really need 7 toys in their cage or would 2 or 3 do, then rotate out once the bird becomes bored or destroys them? Do parrots really need every toy to be bright colors or is the dye an unnecessary and unhealthy way to overload a bird brain? While Kiwi isnā€™t a particularly misbehaved or hyper parrot (though he does have his moments:rolleyes:), I was curious if anyone else was interested enough to try this with their naughty/hyperactive birds to see how they respond? I also plan to update this thread as I move forward with Kiwiā€™s new toy collection/toy rotation structure as to how he responds. My plan is to offer 2 hanging toys each in his cage and on his play tree and 3-5 each foot toys/loose beads in his ā€œtoy basketsā€ (which currently overflow with little toys) and only rotate out once destroyed or if not being played with anymore. I also plan to limit colors to a primarily neutral pallet (out of necessity in my case). It should be an interesting experiment. Any other thoughts, comments etc.... are also welcome!
 
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SilverSage

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This is fascinating PLEASE keep us updated!

With my untamed birds I usually only offer 1-2 toys at a time because more seems to send them into a panicked puddle in the corner of the cage. By having just a couple, always in the same place, they seem to be able to know they are toys no matter what they look like. So your theory makes sense to me!


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SailBoat

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Hanging toys are total different than actual toys. As Hanging toys create a safe place for the Parrot to retreat to when the home is overly busy or has new things and people.
With abused Parrots, I have found that their having a place to blend into helps them nap and/or sleep longer.
Color has always been a concern of mine since in the bad-old-days most all coloring with the exception of 'most' food coloring are not safe for Parrots or Humans. So, we have long avoid color as a reason to buy a specific toy.
Chew toys and mid-to-larger Parrots. Our Amazon can chew five to seven chew (foot) toys in a single day. Or, totally avoid them for several weeks. With excellent luck, for us, his love of booklets is common in late Winter and Spring when we have last years medical coverage and IRS booklets available.
So for our current owner of our home, he has three to five Hanging toys for his nap place and four on the top play stand and an untold (varying) number in his hiding places, which he controls.
 
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Scott

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I try to find toys of interest and place no more than 1 or 2 at a time per cage. Most of my flock enjoys converting wood to toothpicks. Most will gladly accept plain soft wood without dye. I purchase untreated 2x4s and cut into appropriate block sizes, drill holes and mount on chain.

Some love to chew plastic chain, found a brand that claims to be free of heavy metals and phthalates. Don't see any evidence of missing particles indicative of swallowing. Opinions please! https://www.mrchain.com/plastic-chain.html
 

texsize

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For my Cockatiels minimalism works fine. My Tiels all have a partner or cage-mate of some kind and don't need so many toys.

The other end of the spectrum is Bella (CAG) She has 3 large wooden hanging toys that let her hide in one corner of her cage.
When someone knocks at the door she hides.
When the gardeners come by making noise outside she hides.
Sometimes I trhink she just likes to meditate :p
 

charmedbyekkie

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I think it really depends on the individual bird. I know some are terrified of certain toys.

For Cairo, he's a bit hyperactive and easily bored/distracted, plus he has a clear preference for colourful toys. So he's gotten much happier with having a bigger cage with more toys. He'll play with one for 2-10 minutes, then rush off to another for 2-10 minutes, then go to yet another. He doesn't have clear favourites, just maybe a slight preference for a week or two. He likes having a wide diversity of toys, and it's hard to predict what's going to be his next 'flavour of the day'. If I had to tell you his favourite toys, it'd be a list of 5-6 toys, not 2 or 3. Like SailBoat and Texsize said, I do have extra toys up that are more for hiding behind, but even those get played with occasionally.

I wish I could go minimalist (would really save my wallet and cleaning time). Sometimes I wonder if his toy-hopping is a side effect from when he was younger and had only one little bell ball cat toy (which broke within the first month of him being rehomed to us, much to my horror). It's like he just can't get enough toys! He'll find anything and everything. Tbh, it's more a matter of teaching him that the whole world isn't made of toys.
 

SailBoat

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Cage size is an important factor regarding the number of toys.

Another issues is 'rehomed' Parrots! There is a standing issues with first getting them out of the security and possibly self-preservation of the daze emptiness of their past life.

Each of us are practiced with 'rehomed' Parrots and have worked to release our Parrots from their past and into our open homes where they have blossomed. To that end, we must always be watchful of a back slide on our part as they can far too easily slip back into that empty place.

We all know that it is always their needs that matter the most. To that point, I truly believe that it is what they require that moment that matters the most. And, as a group, we need to assure that we are reading them correctly.

How much is too much and what is too little is best left to their wants.

With Julio, he as his hiding places and he is happy with that approach. Each of our prior owners had different requirements. Based solely on this fairly small sample of Amazons, it comes back to what they want when they want it.

Seems to have taken me forever to say; Its up to one's Parrot!
 
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Kiwibird

Kiwibird

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Yesterday, we (I) made a huge dent in the problem. I threw out a full 13 gallon kitchen trash bag of old toys, mostly plastic but some old wood too. I am still itchy because of that stupid rope fibers. I now have a good idea of what toy parts not to buy him again and what his favorites were. Got rid of a lot of old half chewed wood blocks. If it was plastic and it had beak marks, I deemed it too soft and tossed it. Iā€™m ordering wood and stainless replacements today. We mostly kept acrylic foraging and trick training toys and not a whole lot else. A few rattles a big wood beads in good condition but not much was worth salvaging. Why did I have so many toy parts floating around again??! He has some plastic drawers for toy storage and for the first time ever they are close to empty rather than will barely close lol.

I guess Kiwi is an unusual specimen in that he is not one to ā€˜hideā€™ from much of anything, especially behind a toy. Even when very new to us, he was still very ready and willing to confront virtually any perceived threat rather than retreat.

Kiwi too prefers bright toys but due to his kidney issues I feel dyed toys are no longer safe (dye in food caused a flare up of the kidney inflammation). And they are making hard plastics softer now which scares me he could accidentally ingest bits of plastic because the donā€™t withstand a parrot beak as well. We have no choice but to switch him to less colorful toys. But finding what I did regarding parents having success calming hyper kids by reducing toys and offering more neutral selections was interesting since parrot brains are so similar to that of small children. From what I was reading, a kid with 100 toys will likely bounce from toy to toy to toy and have a short attention span, but a kid with 20 carefully chosen toys will play with one toy for longer and be more focused and calm while doing so. Iā€™m simply curious if parrots would display a similar behavioral shift. I know if Kiwi had better focus, he may be more interested in training. We made a little progress a few years ago in identifying shapes and colors but heā€™d get so easily distracted/bored, it eventually became an exercise in futility.

Iā€™m ordering his new toys today and am eager to see what heā€™ll think of them!
 
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SilverSage

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I donā€™t have any hiders, either, not even my Grey. But, I also have fewer rescues than I used to, and we have had birds in the past that needed a hiding place.


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wrench13

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Salty ignores hanging toys inside his cage, but he does smash a few foot toys on the cage floor. On his play chain though he is totally different, actively attacking his tubular bells and destroying most wood toys of various types. He will ignore one and then all of a sudden decide to work on that one. Color seems to have little to do with it.
 

SassiBird

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...But finding what I did regarding parents having success calming hyper kids by reducing toys and offering more neutral selections was interesting since parrot brains are so similar to that of small children. ...

I'm curious what you mean by "parrot brains are so similar to that of small children". There are comparison being made in academia between learning capacity of parrots and preschool aged children. What you're talking about is how they respond to environmental stimulus.

It's still intriguing and worth investigating.
 
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Kiwibird

Kiwibird

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Iā€™d argue parrots react very similarly to small children to external stimulus, including the emotional state of their caretakers in response to environment. Many parents (anecdotal comments on articles, blogs videos etc...) commented they felt a lot of stress over excessive childrenā€™s toys and presumably part of their childrenā€™s misbehavior was due to the parents stress. In my personal experience with parrots, they too pick up on stress in their human caretakers. Cluttered cages are visual clutter in our (humans) environment too and also allow for a greater mess since there is more for them to fling around and may lead to some increase of stress in us our birds pick up on.

Many parents also claimed increases in attention span with less toys/simpler designed toys whereas their children previously would play with a toy for only a short period then move to the next because they had so many toys to play with. We had one person comment on this thread their bird runs from toy to toy to toy indicating minimal ability to focus on one toy/toys are not holding the birds attention for very long. My own bird also goes from toy to toy and often has the attention span of a gnat when it comes to playing. Iā€™ve observed in my dads cockatoo, who often has only a couple toys at any given time, a laser focused determination to destroy (his preferred way of playing) the toy for hours on end. Never really thought about why that might be in the context of the behavioral impact of more toys vs less toys.

While blog posts, anecdotes and internet comments are obviously far from a true scientific study, itā€™s hard not to see numerous parallels between parrots and small children. In fact, when introducing new ideas to my bird, I more frequently turn to parenting advice than advice geared towards birds (and I feel thatā€™s led to an exceptional bird).
 

HEEDLESS

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Hi Kiwibird

I'm hoping that you can post pics/links of best toys you are going to get for your baby.. I would like to buy the right toys for my baby Kise.

There are toys that Kise doesn't even want to go near.. she just look at them and went other direction.



Thank you very much and very much appreciate..


**CHUUUUUUUUUUU**
 

SilverSage

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Actually, a lot of my philosophies of parroting come from witnessing the damage done to foster children and then seeing the same behaviors present in parrots and stringing points together, and Iā€™ve seen incredible success in producing mentally and emotionally sound birds in comparison to traditional raising methods. The parallels are there to be seen in my opinion.


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GaleriaGila

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Great thread. So interesting!

I think it's always good to step back and question the "basics", and just in general, think outside the cage.

Thanks for all the ideas.
 

Sandy19

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It's a coincidence you posted this because yesterday I was thinking to myself that not only am I getting sick of looking at all these junky toys, but she's really not doing anything with them either except pooping on them. So I rearranged the play stands and threw out every toy except for a couple. I left the table top stand completely bare and she's been sitting on that thing all day which she usually doesn't do and she's actually playing with the couple of toys I left on the other stand. I don't know if it's just because it's something new to her or what.

Before

pyMHMJgl.jpg


After

t33m5u2l.jpg
 

SassiBird

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This is great. Observation and questioning is great. I brought up the question because I think sometimes birds are compared to children in one aspect and then the label sticks.

Investigate. Experiment. I'm interested in what you learn.
 
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