Toys for alexandrines?

[BPassmore]

I am going to be receiving my baby alexandrine in about 2 months and i have been doing a lot of research. I have been looking at toys online and am not sure if an alexandrine is classified as a 'medium' or 'large' size parrot. It affects some of the sizes of the toys.
Also, what kind of toys does your alexandrine like?
Thanks!!

 

[Betrisher]

Mine prefer wood above anything else. They just love chomping away the bark layer and then turning the remaining timber into splinters. I go driving in the countryside and collect branches from native trees for them (eucalyptus, bottlebrush, melaleuca, banksia etc) as well as the fallen tips of eucalyptus trees with the gumnuts still attached. Recently, I found out our local funeral director has a grove of red-flowering ironbark trees. These have massive gumnuts (about two inches long and an inch across) and my birds *love* them! They rip out all the seeds and then chew the gumnut itself down to frass.

Another great chomping toy is an old pallet. Always make sure you get one that has never been painted or treated: just the raw wood. I use a hole saw to cut 'biscuits' out of the timber, leaving a 'holey' piece which I just toss on the rooves of the cages. The birds like to hang upside down and reach through the bars to chew the piece of wood. The 'biscuits' are drilled with a large central hole and strung on string or leather. They don't last long.

Unlike my corella, the Beaks aren't terribly acrobatic. While they enjoy climbing on a cargo rope and swinging on an loop of rope hanging from their roof, they don't climb or bounce or jump much. There are a scant few acrylic foraging toys they will fiddle with, but I can't say they like those very much. More often than not, they get bored and just leave the food inside the toy and move onto something they can chomp.

Recently, too, they've been enjoying it *hugely* when I donate empty pizza boxes to their big red bills. It took the Beaks less than a day to turn seven pizza boxes into confetti! You should see my back deck! I'll have to get out there with the blower-vac tomorrow! Rosetta, on the other hand, likes to treat her pizza boxes like a trampoline and bounces up and down for ages until the box collapses from her weight. Then, I open out the box and use it to line her cage. She's fine with that and hasn't appeared to have watched the Beaks chewing their boxes. We'll see how that goes.

More than anything, the Beaks have enjoyed learning to do little tricks. They're *extremely* attentive and throw themselves right into learning new skills. It took Barney less than ten minutes to learn how to pick up beads and put them 'in the bin' for me. Sadly, I haven't got a safe area to get the Beaks out in for now (it's coming, but not until the warmer weather), so they must be content with their cage toys: wooden beads, wooden spoons, chopsticks tied in bunches, whiffle balls (with the bells removed because Alexes *always* bite bells open and chew on the metal clappers - poisoning threat!), cargo net, hanging rope swing, a leather tassel made from a bit of veg-tanned leather cut into strips and their rummage basket.

The rummage basket is just a hanging wire planter. I wind 3/4"sisal rope around the rim of the basket to make it easier to perch and hang on, then I just fill it with toilet paper tubes, toothpaste boxes (without the toothpaste inside, obvs), empty tissue boxes which have been flattened, egg cartons and any old cardboard thing that could occupy a Beak for a brief moment in time.

We get a lot of junk mail, so I'll wind that up very tightly into a log and tie it with string. If I haven't got any real wood for my birds to chew, they're happy enough to chew on a junk-mail log. Just make sure you take out any metal staples first!

Finally, there's a huge stainless steel baking dish (big enough to bake a very large turkey). That's their swimming pool. Barney will gingerly dip his toes in, always decide it's too cold (even in the height of summer) and then very slowly lower himself until he's standing on the bottom. The water comes up to his thighs and he *hates* it, so he'll pause for a millisecond and then hop out again. Madge, on the other hand, stands on the edge for a moment and then leaps in, wings outspread, and dances around and around yelling joyfully as she bathes herself and anyone silly enough to stand nearby. I don't know why their experiences of water are so different, but they are. Go figure!

PS. My Beaks have absolutely no interest in those fancy bought parrot toys that consist of wooden and plastic beads strung on cotton rope and hanging in tassels. I can almost hear them yawning 'Ho-hum' when I offer such a toy. Your bird might be different, but that's what mine do. I'm quite pleased that all their favourite toys are the cheap ones I make myself!

 

[Jottlebot]

That's a brilliant post above!! To add my boy's preferences wood is definitely the favourite. With Alex's the concept isn't "that's his FAVOURITE toy, he's had it for AGES!" it's more "yup, that's the 17th one he's had and it's still matchsticks by the time I close the cage door. Still a favourite!".

He's happy with shop bought toys, either medium or large would be fine for their super-huge beaks! I do a lot of DIY though because it makes things last longer. I don't use wood that isn't from toys though because I don't know enough about it to judge the safety.

He loves to stand on ropes and swings, but there's no acrobatics as said above.

He used to love chomping through bottle tops, but he seems to have got over that.

I've got some acrylic foraging toys, but I had to drill bigger holes in them to get his big beak into them. He won't work very hard to get the food out!

He does like to learn tricks