Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
In the video below its stated quite succinctly.
In the wild, parrots spend 50 to 70% of their daylight hours foraging for food.
Most parrots in captivity are given food in a bowl.
What would take a parrot 4 to 8 hours to do in the wild is reduced to a leisurely 30 minutes in captivity?
As a result, some of these birds resort to other behaviors to occupy their time.
This could be screaming or over-preening which eventually leads to feather plucking.
If not corrected these birds can develop other destructive or neurotic behaviors due to extreme boredom.Â
In the video, everything the bird did to eat was earned and was a challenge.
You best believe every day there was a different treat in a different compartment in a different toy.
The video goes on to show how the toys are used in different order to further challenge the bird.
Tell me that wasn’t one happy bird having the time of his life just looking for the next challenge?
I listen to customer service calls and read customer service tickets all week long asking similar questions.
“What can I give my bird that he will like but not upset him?”
“The new perch we put in the cage is freaking him out.”
Or “We’ve had this cage for 25 years, it’s wearing out and we want the same one so we don’t upset our bird.”
But then your satellite service gets you 936 channels for variety.
Help get your bird used to change again, we advocate 10 or more bird toys in the top one-third of your bird’s cage, line the inside walls of the cage, sides, front and back, leaving much of the center open for the bird.
If they want to play with a toy or snuggle next to one, hide behind another, or destroy something they will go to it.
The toys in your bird’s cage are the leaves on the tree they may be living in the wild.
Next, go into your bird’s cage at least once a week and move a toy from one side of the cage to the other side, or add a new toy.
Think things are getting dull, or your bird is getting upset with a small change.
It is time for an overhaul of senses.
Remove the bird to another room or a stand and move everything around, not just the toys but the perches too!
Unless you have a “special needs” parrot, stop making things so easy for your birds.
Why not make them reach for the food bowl once in a while?
We like to move things around the birdcage and make our birds “work for food” for the same reasons humans go to the gym, take long walks, and do other physical activities, to help improve the quality of our own lives.
Although this video has absolutely nothing to do with birds we thought the theme appropriate as its title is “Change”.
It’s a music video from the band “Churchill”, a song we’ve really grown to like with a pretty cool video to boot.
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