Toys Your Pet Bird Will Enjoy

Birds love to play. That is why we as bird owners must supply our birds with as many diverse toys for them to chew, forage, shred, and otherwise completely destroy, for their enjoyment. But the big thing that people might overlook is that toys must, above all else, be safe for their birds to play with.

Foraging Toys

Foraging Toys are the best kind of toy you can supply your bird with. They stimulate your birds mind, and in return, stimulate your bird's natural instinct to forage for food. In the wild, birds spend the majority of their day searching for food. If you simply give your bird its food in a bowl, that's okay. But if you want to help provide your bird a more natural environment as possible, then you should supply your bird with as many foraging toys as possible. This can be especially delightful if after your bird works hard to forage through the toy and finds that you have hidden its favorite treat inside it! Another thing you can do is buy multiple foraging toys that look alike and place them in the bird's cage or on a play stand. Place your bird's favorite treat in one of them. If you change which toy you place the treat in each day, your build will learn that it was to search each and every toy to find it. This will help your bird to become a smarter, stronger, healthier bird. Many of these foraging toys you can hang, but some are simple cardboard boxes that you can stuff with treats or other food and placed on the bottom of the bird's cage, or tie them to an already existing toy.

Wood Chew Toys

Wooden Chew Toys are great because, much like foraging toys, they encourage a bird's natural instinct to chew things. Most wooden chew toys are made of natural woods, fibers, and materials that birds naturally love to chew on, such as Manzanita, cholla, and balsa. Birds love to chew things and providing your birdie with a wide selection of things to chew and destroy will provide hours of enjoyment. If the toy is painted or dyed, make sure to find out what kind of paint/dye was used to ensure that it does not contain any lead or other products hazardous to your bird.

Acrylic Bird Toys

Birds find acrylic toys be simply irresistible. This is due to bright colors and funky shapes, not to mention the tough durability that will hold up, even up against the toughest of chewers, and will keep your bird entertained and busy for hours on end.

Foot Toys

Foot Toys are excellent because they help exercise a bird's foot and leg muscles, while still encouraging the bird to chew.

Shreddable Toys

Birds love to destroy things. Providing your bird with numerous shredding toys will help it to avoid feather picking (it will be too busy picking at the toy!) There are also several shreddable toys called "piñatas" which are stuffed with shreddable paper and have little treats inside. These double as a shreddable and foraging toy. Other shreddable toys have shredded paper for which the bird to pray from the inside of the toy. Look for birdie bagels, shreddable rings and balls, and chew tubes, to provide your bird with a shreddable toy that it can also hold. There is also one that resembles a toilet paper roll. The bird can tug, rip, pull and destroy the paper at their leisure. They also sell individual rolls so that you can restock the toy if your bird chews all the paper.

Puzzle Toys

Simple Puzzle Toys are great for one on one interaction for your birdie friend and you. Many of the larger birds can use little children puzzles like the block puzzles where it has to fit a square or circle inside of a puzzle box. Just be sure that it doesn't have any materials that may be harmful to your bird. There are also specially made puzzles that you can buy. There are many acrylic bird puzzles that you can buy to try and teach your bird shapes, colors, letters, and more.

Wacky Toys

Many birds enjoy the toys we, as humans, either think are not interesting enough or too complicated for them to learn how to use. You have to remember that birds are very smart and want to please their owners in any way they can. Birds love a challenge. Believe or not, many birds like to play basketball. Some birds like to ride scooters. There are also birdie roller skates you can buy. Other birds like to climb rope ladders/nets. Birds are much sillier than we sometimes give them credit for. To mix it up, provide your pet bird the opportunity to play with one of these wacky toys.

Play stands, Play towers, and Play gyms

These are excellent to have as they provide out of cage playtime for your bird while still allowing you time to use the computer or watch some television. But don't get into the habit of simply putting your bird down onto a play stand and then turning on the television or computer and sitting for several hours, all the while ignoring your bird. Many play stands are able to hold both a food and water bowl, as well as contain multiple levels and a half-dozen, if not more, hooks to hang toys from. If you want to buy your bird one of these, be sure to take their size into account. A small bird like a parakeet or budgie can use a tabletop play stand. A larger bird like an African gray, a cockatoo or a macaw is going to need a very large play stand.

Mix it up

Remember to mix it up. You should have enough toys so that you can rotate between a set of three toys each week so that your bird will not see the same toy again until the next month. Be sure to include all the different types of toys to fully provide your bird with a wide range of interesting things to chew, shred, and destroy.