Birds need mental stimulation just like cats and dogs and pretty much every animal. Working for food is a great way to provide that stimulation. It can also be a great way to get your bird to eat foods in usually rejects. Wild birds spend most of their time foraging for food, so it’s a strong drive. Enrich your birds life with ways to foster that drive. Making your own foraging toys will help save you money too. You may need to make it easy for them at first to get the treats, but they’ll catch on quickly. Supervise your birds!
- A foraging toy for birds who haven’t learned to forage is this seeds-in-a-cork foraging toy.
- Put nuts, veggies, etc. in those little tiny cereal boxes or raisin boxes and let your bird tear into the box to retrieve the goodies.
- 2 nifty foraging toys—one that doubles as a swing made from paper & another made with paper muffin cups.
- String uncooked pasta, veggies, or fruit you dried on string and hang in you bird’s cage.
- A recipe for seed kabobs on wooden spoons.
- Great foraging mat for birds who ground forage.
- Drill holes in a stick and stuff them with nuts or other treats.
- Video on 2 foraging toys—nuts & seeds pressed into untreated balsa wood, a treat in a small dixie cup then twisted shut.
- Wrap some treats in paper, stuff into an empty toilet paper roll, and fold the ends shut.
- Another version of the toilet paper roll toy uses Kiote Koins (dried yucca chips).
- Here’s a recipe for little popcorn balls on popsicle sticks.
- Wrap treats in coffee filters and tie shut.
- Clever idea to put unpopped popcorn kernels in small whiffle balls, wrap it damp paper towel and microwave a short time until the kernels pop inside the ball. (scroll to 2nd post)
- Super easy rice cake foraging toy.
- Brilliant stacked foraging toy made using origami.