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A Thief Keeps Active All the Time. WOJun 01 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Use your imagination and make use of toys, ropes, anything that is safe to keep your bird moving and interested in his life.
How to keep your bird active is the bird owners main priority behind nutrition. Keeping your bird healthy and happy is all part of keeping your birds active. I have 5 birds at this time. Three big birds and 2 small ones. The big birds are Polly an African Congo Grey she is the oldest of my birds at 4 ½, next is Knuckles an Amazon that will be a year old on July 4th. Pepper is a Jenday Conure who is now 1 year old. My newest member is Peaches a Sun Conure and hopefully a partner for Pepper, Peaches is 2 years old. Last but not least is Chief he is the baby at 7 months old and he is a Lesser Sulfur Crested Cockatoo. My house is like a zoo with cages all in one room where they all sleep and play pens of all types and sizes in the dining room and living room. All of my birds are different types but they have a few things in common and one of those things is Their need to keep busy This is done with a combination of toys, toys, and more toys, ropes to climb and areas to investigate. All of the birds play with toys, chewing, hiding, swinging on or just climbing the cages. They all stay very active. This is particularly important for a CAG or Cockatoo who both are prone to plucking feathers. Birds that are left in their cages with no toys to play with or nothing to keep them interested are prone to be emotional tyrants and feather pluckers along with biting and other bad habits, some even go so far as to mutilate themselves. Birds in the wild are constantly busy all day they are foraging for food, chewing trees, making nests, escaping from predators and keeping each other busy since they travel and roost in flocks for safety. In our homes we are the flock, they are in cages and can not just fly away to chew on a tree or play with another bird. It is left up to us to supply them with things to chew on (unless you want your antique table to be chewed up) and places to climb and toys to play with. All of these things make for a happy bird. My birds are kept busy with a variety of different items. Knuckles, doesn’t like to go on the playpens every day instead he likes to lurk in his cage where the door is always open until all the birds are out of the room. Then when I go look for him I find him climbing down onto the floor until he reaches the other cages where he climbs up them and over until he sees one that has food or a toy he likes. When I look again he is in the cage he has chosen to raid, eating their food or chewing on their toys. When he gets tired of this game he climbs back to his cage or comes and visits in the dining room with me. He is busy all day doing this I call it foraging. We keep a variety of toys in their cages and on their playpens. There are ropes called Bongos hanging from the ceiling with a plastic milk gallon container between the top of the rope and the ceiling. This keeps them from chewing on the plaster of the ceiling. There are big rope ladders that go from one point to another so the birds can visit where they want to between their playpens. We have different size playpens and have made a play table from a large wooden island that we had. It sits beside the playpen and gives them a four foot wooden area to play on. My husband has converted a couple of large playpens into tree pens. He did this by taking the top of a safe tree that is non poisonous to the birds and attaching it to the bottom of the play pen. He has made a table with a tree top on the same idea. This gives the birds lots of trees to chew on and they love it. To sum it all up here are ways to keep your birds active. Provide plenty of toys. Wooden, acrylic, hard plastic, balls. Children’s toys, are great for this as long as they are non toxic. Stainless steel nuts and bolts are great, the birds are constantly taking them apart and trying to put them back together. Placing chicken bones on a hanger for them to play with and eat keeps them busy for hours. Long cinnamon sticks they can chew on are great. Exchange toys on a regular basis so they don’t get tired of the same thing. Use your imagination and make sure they are safe and you will have a happy bird. Keep lots of ropes and places for them to explore make little cube holes where they can hide toys or keep toys in them they can pull out. One of the toys Chief likes is the pacifier he stole from my grandson they were both on the floor fighting over it. I bought one for Chief and he spends a lot of time carrying it from place to place and chewing on it. Now you have heard it all, a bird with a pacifier Older birds still need toys to play with. Polly likes to chew up ropes she spends a lot of time doing this and running her mouth. Her favorite item is a large wooden toy with a big bell attached, she doesn’t eat on this one, but uses the bell to greet us when she wakes up in the morning, she rings this bell when she wants attention and takes care not to mess it up. There is nothing more pathetic to me then seeing a big bird sit on a perch all day long with nothing to do but look and be looked at. This is part of a write off planned by Bluehawq on My Silly Pet W/O please read the other participants. bluehawq | surferdude7 | nikjdog | catladyfromnpt AngelaBar | CJsMommy | jro26 | Whitty viper1963 | KittyOKC | Third_Man | thom413 debbie26 | Cartman_2K | GinaHill | AinsleyJo marytara | susiewho | caleo | Ali78 disartain | djsplendid | mom2girlz | Sarahlynn nwinston | frazzledspice | pmills1210 | fostrmom2mny ggrimes1221 | HazelWebster | char.mike altaloma | jo.com | Presleysmama nanct | micheich | sherrywilliam bpotter1 | Sephiroth2000 | Macresarf1 PalmerLD | Patch3boys | manky  |
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