Birds need mental stimulation just like cats and dogs and pretty much every animal. Â Working for food is a great way to provide that stimulation. Â It can also be a great way to get your bird to eat foods in usually rejects. Â Wild birds spend most of their time foraging for food, so it’s a strong drive. Â Enrich your birds life with ways to foster that drive. Â Making your own foraging toys will help save you money too. Â You may need to make it easy for them at first to get the treats, but they’ll catch on quickly. Â 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.