new toy ideas?

[psitticine]

Hi all, I am looking for new toy options for my 3 year old quaker. She consistently only really likes things she can chew on, especially the Planet Pleasures toys. She has two foraging toys that she has claimed as favorites, both from them! I'm so glad we've found some that she really likes, but I want to expand her horizons with some more enriching toys. I've tried giving her plastic ones like a treasure box with blocks, a hanging ball with toys inside that she can poke at, a locking treat toy for her to solve (think puzzle toy)... she used to unravel and weave her balls of twine into the cage bars, she loved playing on a play gym, she would play with that plastic ball and loved the treasure box... she doesn't do any of that stuff when I try to give those to her anymore. She even became randomly scared of the play gym so we have it tucked away.

Has anyone experienced this thing where the bird gets less interested in toys as they mature? She screams pretty frequently so I know she must be at least a little bored. She shows all the signs of a happy quaker, but I know they are super smart, and I want her to be using her noggin! Does anyone have suggestions?

 

[Corkscr.ew]

My birds love seagrass baskets filled with crinkle paper. I slide treats into the paper and they spend a while ripping the paper out. Also most birds are more enriched by easy toys. Get some soft materials like yucca, balsa, cardboard, etc. It might be more fun for her than working hard on a hardwood or plastic toy.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

You may have already tried all these toys. My female budgies love to chew and destroy. I find it important to give them chew toys or they may start chewing up my house. They love those woven toy mats and the crinkle paper and ball toys like the ones in my picture. The woven mat toy is mostly destroyed already. Paper towel rolls and cardboard egg containers are a huge hit and are free. Also popular with mine are the metal rings wrapped in colored rope (they eventually unravel the rope) and the hanging toy in the second picture with the round compressed fiber things that give them hours of chewing fun.

I've never had a safety issue with any of these toys and I've given them to my flock of budgies for years. Some people get nervous about things that may potentially get them in tangled or snagged in but my budgies never do. Just make sure you keep your bird's nails smoothly trimmed if they have a tendency to overgrow and get snagged in things.

I also give them plastic soda bottle caps just to play with. You can drill holes in them and string them into a hanging toy.

 

[rheashard2]

Computer paper cut into different sizes, with favorite treat, crinkle paper or other bird safe item, twist close and scatter on top of cage. Sometimes I'll braid paper strips with straws, foot toys, treats, etc then hang on bars. Cheap and easy make.

 

[cnyguy]

My Quaker Ralph never was too interested in things that were supposed to be parrot toys. He liked to build with his thin wooden dowels and weave nylon cable ties through the cage bars more than anything else. Some other things he liked to play with were stainless steel spoons and a wooden honey dipper. When he was younger he liked to play with some little plastic keys meant for human babies, but eventually he lost interest in them. Ralph wasn't much for chewing things up other than wooden popsicle sticks. Some experimenting will probably be necessary to find something your Quaker would like.

 

[wrench13]

Quakers are some of natures best engineers! They instinctually build complicated, mutli member communal nests in the wild, and build so well that really big nests have to be blown apart with explosives. Try giving your quaker a big double handfull of wood coffee stirrers in his cage and stand back!

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

I was going to suggest straws and stuff they can weave through the bars of the cage, also! Maybe twigs and other, smaller items that can be manipulated through he bars of the cage?

 

[cnyguy]

What I used to get for Ralph were wooden dowels about 1/8" thick and cut them to roughly 10" lengths. He would use the cage walls, bottom grate and his ladder to support his stick structures. He wasn't interested in building an actual nest but he really enjoyed arranging and rearranging the sticks. Usually when he was satisfied with his completed project, he would squawk for me to come and take it apart so he could start all over. That kept him busier than almost anything else could. Quakers can be resourceful and may use all kinds of things to build and weave with.