Parrot Toys — What are they for?

Some birds become dull and lethar­gic, oth­ers begin to fum­ble and sort out feath­ers (which turns into a very bad habit and often caus­es self-pluck­ing). Fun toys are the answer to the above prob­lems. By pro­vid­ing your bird with hours of enter­tain­ment and exer­cise, you help your bird stay fit and healthy through toys. As a pet in cap­tiv­i­ty, birds do not have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ful­ly do what they do in the wild. When observ­ing wild par­rots, it was noticed that after the pri­or­i­ty of col­lect­ing food and sleep­ing, play time comes in sec­ond place. In the wild, par­rots are very active and play­ful. They are engaged in strip­ping the bark, bit­ing off twigs and leaves, fol­lowed by toss­ing, swing­ing on vines and vines. And we should not for­get that our pets in this respect are no dif­fer­ent from their wild coun­ter­parts. Play­ing with toys is a vital sub­sti­tute for nat­ur­al behav­iors such as for­ag­ing, build­ing a nest, and inter­act­ing with a pack. Toys per­form sev­er­al impor­tant func­tions:

“In young birds, play­time is part of the learn­ing process in which birds begin to iden­ti­fy tex­tures, col­ors, and shapes.
It also helps devel­op coor­di­na­tion and agili­ty. Inter­ac­tion with var­i­ous objects at a young age helps the bird to become self-con­fi­dent.

“Toys pro­vide an out­let for nat­ur­al aggres­sion and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expend ener­gy through exer­cise. Toys can also help redi­rect aggres­sion from own­ers to oth­er objects.

- Chang­ing toys improves men­tal health and gives the bird a sense of inde­pen­dence, mak­ing it self-suf­fi­cient. Birds pro­vid­ed with many toys are less self-cen­tered and exhib­it less neg­a­tive behav­iors such as: self-pinch­ing and self-muti­la­tion, scream­ing when not pay­ing atten­tion, fear of unknown objects, aggres­sive­ness towards peo­ple, dam­age to prop­er­ty.

Focus­ing par­rots on them­selves, with­out pro­vid­ing con­di­tions for exer­cise, enter­tain­ment, com­fort — will lead to bore­dom, depres­sion, poor phys­i­cal and men­tal con­di­tion.
The bird should have a wide vari­ety of toys. It is also rec­om­mend­ed to change them week­ly to stim­u­late curios­i­ty and pre­vent bore­dom.

How to choose the right toys for a parrot?

When choos­ing toys, you should always remem­ber that bird toys are much more than just toys!
A toy must meet the needs and inter­ests of your par­rot. It reflects to some extent his per­son­al­i­ty. The key to choos­ing the right toy is observ­ing your bird. After all, each bird has a pref­er­ence for cer­tain mate­ri­als, col­ors, tex­tures and shapes. Always keep this in mind when observ­ing how the bird inter­acts with toys and oth­er items in the house. Per­haps your bird likes:
✅ Chew, nib­ble, preen, play with a shad­ow, dig through box­es or take apart toys
✅ hang upside down or climb cur­tains
✅ hold objects in the paw or throw them
✅ tear and shred paper
✅ solve puz­zles
✅ make holes in fab­rics or untie knots
✅ shiny items
✅ play with bells or oth­er objects that make sounds.
Answer­ing these ques­tions will help you choose a toy that match­es your bird’s pref­er­ences and inter­ests.

chewing toys:

Gnaw­ing is the main activ­i­ty of birds in the wild, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son when the birds are active­ly nest­ing in tree trunks. It is imper­a­tive that birds are pro­vid­ed with wood­en chew­ing toys at all times. Wood toys will pro­vide your par­rot with hours of chew­ing and chew­ing plea­sure. Do not be upset that the bird destroys them. This means that they are ben­e­fi­cial to her. For large par­rots, toys made of hard wood are suit­able. Soft toys such as pine, vine, apple tree, etc. are per­fect for small par­rots. A good and use­ful chew­ing toy is obtained from sepia, or as it is also called, “cut­tle­fish shell”.

Training toys:

Peo­ple use a lot of sim­u­la­tors so that all the mus­cles of the body receive a load. The same applies to birds. Pet birds are in great need of a vari­ety of exer­cise toys that will train mus­cles in var­i­ous parts of the body. Var­i­ous types of swings will per­fect­ly devel­op the abil­i­ty to bal­ance, and lad­ders, nets and ropes will make the bird move more and devel­op tenac­i­ty, strength­en­ing the strength of the fin­gers.

Mechanical toys and manipulator toys:

Birds are very intel­li­gent and curi­ous crea­tures. Many of them real­ly enjoy unty­ing knots, turn­ing nuts and bolts in cages. Puz­zles and toys that require manip­u­la­tion should be chal­leng­ing enough. They will stim­u­late such birds to think and train the body.

Filled toys:

Toys with paper or fab­ric, rope filler are suit­able for birds who love to con­stant­ly touch and pull the feath­er, pre­vent­ing or dis­tract­ing them from this very bad habit.

Paw toys:

The paw of a par­rot can very skill­ful­ly take and hold small objects. These are small, light­weight toys that a par­rot can manip­u­late and chew on. Such toys devel­op paw dex­ter­i­ty very well and the bird gets a lot of plea­sure from gnaw­ing and chew­ing.

Comfort toys:

In the wild, birds often con­tact their rel­a­tives, cud­dling up to them while sit­ting on branch­es or in a nest. In a cage, some birds, espe­cial­ly when they are alone, like to snug­gle up or crawl into some­thing soft and cozy. This reduces their stress and gives them a sense of secu­ri­ty. This type of toys includes var­i­ous rings with thick and soft wind­ings, pipes-tun­nels.

Choosing a safe toy. Materials for toys.

The safe play of a par­rot depends entire­ly on its own­er. Choos­ing the right toy is one way to help keep our birds healthy and safe from injury.
There are sev­er­al fac­tors to con­sid­er when choos­ing a safe toy for your bird:
✅ Suit­able size
✅Mate­ri­als and design
✅ What kind of toys does the bird pre­fer and the style of its play.

Any toy can be dan­ger­ous if the size is not cor­rect. For exam­ple, a toy intend­ed for a small bird often con­tains com­po­nents that may present a chok­ing haz­ard to large birds. Con­verse­ly, toys designed for large birds may present a pinch­ing haz­ard for small birds. Small, brit­tle plas­tic parts may be ide­al for a small bird, but are eas­i­ly shat­tered into sharp pieces by the force of a large par­rot’s beak.

Wood:

Birds are con­stant­ly nib­bling and chew­ing. And wood is a great mate­r­i­al to meet these nat­ur­al needs. Par­rots most often play with wood­en toys. Wood­en toys are meant to be destroyed. Some bird own­ers may be frus­trat­ed by the destruc­tive activ­i­ties of their par­rots. How­ev­er, we must accept that nib­bling and chew­ing is a nat­ur­al instinct that is vital to the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal health of the bird. And if you give your par­rot only acrylic, plas­tic toys, believe me, they will find anoth­er, more expen­sive, way to sat­is­fy their needs (doors, fur­ni­ture, etc.). It is impor­tant to know which wood is safe for your bird. For the man­u­fac­ture of toys, both soft and hard woods are used. Birds are able to dis­tin­guish col­ors, so the col­or makes wood­en toys more attrac­tive and inter­est­ing for birds. Man­u­fac­tur­ers usu­al­ly col­or the wood with food or veg­etable dyes. Do not buy scent­ed wood­en toys. Fla­vor­ings often con­tain fruit sug­ars, which are an ide­al breed­ing ground for bac­te­ria, and the scent will encour­age birds to ingest pieces of wood.

Ropes:

Only 100% nat­ur­al fibers must be used in toys. These are cot­ton, hemp (jute), sisal, hemp. Syn­thet­ic ropes and ropes should nev­er be used as they can cause seri­ous injury and cuts due to the strength of the threads, if the bird gets tan­gled in them, chewed such threads can become “nee­dles” inside the bird. Bird own­ers are required to check rope toys dai­ly. And if they are very disheveled, then you can cut them or throw them away alto­geth­er.

Chains:

Chain links should be well sol­dered, not have point­ed joints, “burrs” and cracks. Make sure the link sizes are ade­quate for your bird. If the link is very small, then the bird may break fin­gers or paws stuck in it. Long chains are also dan­ger­ous, as active play can cause the chain to wrap around the bird’s neck.

Plastic in parrot toys:

When buy­ing a toy with plas­tic com­po­nents, the bird own­er must con­sid­er the qual­i­ty of the plas­tic. You should not buy toys made of thin, brit­tle plas­tic, because when they break, sharp cut­ting edges are formed and, if acci­den­tal­ly swal­lowed, this can lead to rup­tures and injuries to inter­nal organs. Plas­tic toys intend­ed for small par­rots should not be giv­en to large birds.

Rings:

When choos­ing a toy with rings or plas­tic chains, make sure the rings are large enough so that the bird’s head can­not get stuck there.

The top­ic of toys for par­rots is no less impor­tant than the top­ics of nutri­tion and feed­ing of par­rots. Some own­ers can spend hours play­ing with their birds, teach­ing them to speak, sing, whis­tle. But still, most own­ers work and their pets are forced to be alone for hours. Some­times the cause of bore­dom is a lack of atten­tion from a per­son. Let it be half an hour a day, but the bird will under­stand that she is not alone, that she is need­ed and loved.