Captive Foraging for Parrots

Here's a video of my caique boy, Icarus, playing with a foraging toy made from a wiffle ball stuffed with newspaper-wrapped treats (small pieces of dried fruit and nuts, individual pellets, etc):



And another video of both birds playing with the wiffle ball forager:

Hey guys,
Do you think (or has anyone) made a foraging toy out of paper masher? I was thinking about why it wouldn't be such a good idea and decided just to ask here. The newspaper (providing it's black and white) won't hurt them and I don't think the floury water mix would hurt them either. And you can make all sorts of variations of shapes pretty easily. I also thought since you can put many layers to make it stronger, it would probably work well for many types of parrots and foraging levels alike. The only thing I would be careful with is making sure every layer is completely dry, or it may be a question of mouldy paper.  Any thoughts?
TIA :o)

Recently, instead of giving my CAG water in her water dish, I've been using a newly-bought small litter box on the bottom of the cage (her cage is large enough for this without getting feces in it from her perching above). There are two reasons for this:

1) I've wanted to see if it would increase her foraging activities, especially when eating pellets as she now has to take them down to the litter pan to dunk them (note: I am not trying to stop the dunking as that seems very cruel to do to an animal that does not produce saliva when eating dry food)

2) I wanted her to have a larger container to attempt to take baths in. She has always hated bathing and it isn't even force-able as she'll keep her feathers flat and moisture never fully penetrates. She tries to take baths in her water dish all the time but with little success because of the size. I hope she'll become comfortable enough with the litter box to try to bathe in it.

So far it's been working pretty decently from the water and pellet aspect. As far as I am aware she has not tried to bathe in it. I was also considering getting another box to allow her to dig for food as I've seen her using her feet to dig in her food dish... but what to have her dig through?

Has anyone else tried either of these before?

Also, for cockatiels what would anyone here suggest as good starter reusable foraging toys?

I finally uploaded pictures of some of the veggies-as-food-dishes that I've been making. Here they are:

Green pepper foraging dish:
Before:


( And after! Plus other veggies. )

Today when I did my weekly cage cleaning and rearranging, I decided to try a new foraging enrichment.

My upstairs neighbors have a garden in our front yard, and I found a small ear of corn whose stalk had broken. I finished breaking it off and wedged the stalk in a corner of the birds' cage.

Sure enough, they've already been chewing on the stalk and have chewed away some of the husk to reveal part of the corn cob! They seem to like it, and it gives their cage a bit of a "jungle-y" feel, with the big corn leaf sticking out.

I'll definitely be pulling other odds and ends from the garden to liven up their cage!

I just found this community when I googled for foraging ideas for my birdies. Some awesome ideas you all have! Instead of doing a big introduction here, here's a link to a livejournal that I started:
http://love4birds.livejournal.com/
There's a couple foraging ideas in there as well as pictures of all my fids. I'm always trying to find new, exciting foraging ideas for the fids, so I'm very excited to come across your community!

I finally got my hands on a couple of little bell peppers small enough to make into foraging "bowls" for my caiques! For yesterday's breakfast, I cut the lid off of one, cut out most of the white inner parts (leaving some seeds for them) and stuffed it with their fresh-food diet. I put the cap back on and then skewered the whole thing onto their hanging stainless steel skewer.

It was a HUGE hit! I came home to find only half of a bell pepper, well-chewed, left on their skewer. Awesome!

(A big thank-you to whoever made that suggestion! I can't remember who it was.)

I wanted to mix it up a little, so today I decided to use a cucumber instead. I've been getting a ton of cukes from my CSA, so it would be great if I could turn them into vessels for bird food. I sliced off the top and used a sharp knife and a small spoon to scoop out the insides. I stuffed the cavity with their sprouts and minced veggies and skewered it sideways on their hanging skewer.

Again, this was a huge hit! All that was left was a small stump of cucumber on the bottom of their cage.

I'm definitely going to put this idea into their daily foraging toy rotation from now on! I'll bet it would work with beets and large spicy peppers as well.

I discovered a nifty natural foraging treat at Whole Foods this weekend: whole star anise pods. My WF has them in the bulk spices section. My birds seem to like them! They don't always eat the seed, but they love ripping open the pods.

I wedge them in vine balls or other shredding toys for them to pull out and chew up, but they would also make good quickie foot toys for small to medium birds.

Today's foraging:

Veggies and fruit on their hanging skewer.

Mash in a tiny terra cotta flowerpot on the skewer, capped with a round of summer squash.

1/3 of a banana still in its peel hung with a quick link. I made a couple of slits in the sides, but didn't make actual openings, so they've mostly been eating it from the bottom up.

A days-of-the-week pill box with TOP pellets and Nutriberries in the compartments zip tied to the bars of the cage. Daedalus has become a master at this one - I think I'm going to have to switch to one that's harder to get open!

Mash in paper "nut cups" (or appetizer cups) folded closed and put into a deep dish for them to pull out.

Snow peas stuck into their shredder toy.

Just wanted to let y'all know that I've started switching up how my two caiques forage for their mash! I can't believe I hadn't thought of stuffing the mash (without any of the "wet stuff" in there) into their regular foraging toys. Thanks for jogging my brain!

So far I've used their peanut-shaped hanging foraging toy, which worked wonderfully, and their hanging foraging dish (heavy plastic 3-part dish with lid).

I've also wrapped their mash in a coffee filter, zip tied it shut, and hung it with a quick link. That worked beautifully - the coffee filter allowed the liquid to seep through a little, which got Icarus to start licking it, which turned into chewing through it to get at the good stuff. Success! By the afternoon there was only a stump of zip-tied coffee filter left dangling.

Tonight's afternoon meal will be mash wrapped in a coffee filter inside a wire foraging cage.

I'm also going to start using rice paper wrappers to make mash packets, and filling a medium-sized terra cotta flowerpot that can hang on their skewer.

So far so good!

( As always, image heavy. )

About a month ago, I saw the DVD on captive foraging in my local awesome parrot place. I didn't want to spend the money on it (grad student here; technically I cannot afford to feed myself, pay rent, etc., so a DVD seemed like a luxury), but my SO suggested that I could probably find information about the idea online, and a search actually turned up this community (along with about a thousand hits for the DVD). Which is fabulous; I've found a lot of great ideas, though I haven't yet put many of them into practice.

So, what I have been doing: ( details, details )

... what can I say? I went to Michaels. Apologies to anyone who's on more than one of my communities. I'm done for now, honest.

( Ideas behind the cut. )

These ideas work for a wide variety of species and sizes of birds, but were designed with cockatiels in mind. Most of them would work well even with smaller birds like budgies and parrotlets.

( Four ideas behind the cut )

My lovely partner transversely came up with this nifty foraging idea for our caiques.

He cut a banana in half and then cut little "windows" into its skin to make the tasty inner fruit accessible. He poked a quick link through its stem and hung it in their cage.

It was a huge hit! They spent a long time digging the banana out through the "windows" in the peel. Here's a picture of the end result:

After days and days of ignored foraging food, at just about the time I was going to give up completely, Picante came around! The only progress to that point was figuring out that it was ok to eat from the bowls on the floor of his cage.

When I am eating or drinking, Picante always says, 'Want some?', because that's what I say to him when offering to share. While I'm drinking coffee, his record is stuck on 'Want some?', particularly when it's in a paper cup, with a plastic top. As soon as the coffee is gone, I let him take off the top. I've always praised him for doing this, without really knowing why and it turns out, that actually wasn't a bad idea. Three days ago, an idea occurred to me. I finished the coffee and rinsed the cup as well as the lid. The inside of the cup was dried and standing directly in front of Picante, I dropped a nut inside the cup, replaced the lid and offered the cup to him. He pulled off the lid, saw the nut and said, 'Oh boy!'. Unfortunately, those plastic lids are only good for one time, because he cracks them on the first try. Next, I put a nut at the bottom of the cup and added in shredded paper, paper towel and cellophane. He sat on my leg, holding the cup and taking out everything. When he got to the bottom, he again said, 'Oh boy!' and crunched away. We did a few more variations for a total of three nuts and two pellets. It's small, but it's progress!

Since Picante likes to break food bowls with ever annoying frequency and it was suggested that I teach him to forage, I've been working on it. Yesterday if I'd left it completely up to him to figure it out, he would have starved to death :P

I started with what I thought would be very easy: a paper plate, food, topped with a paper towel. He completely ignored it. So, I put a SS bowl on the bottom of his cage and covered that with a paper towel. I thought he would at least rip the paper towel to shreds and dump the bowl, but no. We've always given him junk mail and told him to "read" it, or held it for him so he could "sign" whatever requires his signature. He loves that game and thinks that all of the mail should be his. This time, I let him sit in the kitchen and watch me put food on the plate and cover it with mail. Then I took him and his "foraging food" into his cage and left him alone. He didn't even play with the mail.

It was about 10 am, yesterday and if he'd eaten anything, it wasn't much. I gave in and fed him on his playstand. He's very...um vocal when he's hungry and I didn't want to cause anything negative. When he was sated and in a much better mood, we played one of his favorite games. He's terrified of towels, so I started with a washcloth. I lie on the floor with a washcloth over my face and giggle. He takes the washcloth off my face and I say, "peek-a-boo!", in response to his "peek!". The next stage of the game is putting a nut on a paper plate and covering that with a washcloth. He seems to vaguely understand this process, yet always seems to be surprised there's a nut (or pellet, or whatever) under there.

Today, I covered a paper plate with a washcloth and he sat on the bottom of his cage alternately making a mess and actually eating...some. He seems uncomfortable eating on the bottom of his cage, so the process consists of filling his mouth, climbing to a perch, eating, climbing back down, getting another mouthful, rinse, lather repeat.

I also used an unbleached coffee filter, put some food inside and twisted the top. He dumped all the food out of it and destroyed the filter. He doesn't seem aware that while of course this is a game, it's also meant to be his sustenance!

Does this just come with time? Obviously weighing him is a good way to keep track of his progress, but for what other things should I be watching? I work 4 days a week and obviously, at this point, am not confident he will get what he needs through foraging alone when I'm not here to watch him every second. I thought I would offer foraging opportunities when I'm not here, but make sure there is a familiar food source available as well. Is this counter-productive? Do you have another suggestion? Any ideas how I can help make this easier for him to understand?
Is there any reason those cupcake papers can't be used as a foraging device? Not the mylar ones, just the paper.

I've been studying the information on the sites listed on the community profile. And some process has already been made, but it seems really insignificant compared to the importance of him "getting" this. I'd love some helpful critique (or hell, even a "You idiot! You're doing everything wrong! THIS is what Picante needs...", if that's necessary), encouragement and suggestions from folks who've already been through this part. Thank you!

My two caiques are getting pretty good at foraging, so I've had to come up with more challenging foraging ideas for them.

Every day they get their pellets in a different foraging toy. We have a variety of store-bought ones (I'm in the Squawk Store's Monthly Foraging Toy Club, so we've got lots!), and I also do things like wrap pellets in newspaper, stuff the bundle into a cardboard toilet paper tube, and thread that onto their stainless steel spiral.

They also get a hanging skewer of veggies and fruits daily. I've been wrapping their favorite parts (the fruits, of course!) in several phone book pages, leafy greens, or half a tortilla for a while now, but I wanted to vary things a bit.

I went to the craft store and bought paper nut cups, tiny wooden and terracotta flowerpots, and small, thin strips of wood. I wrap slices of banana (with the peel on) in the paper nut cups. I often use two, one in each direction with the sides overlapping. (They still find this pretty easy, since it's paper.)

The flowerpots are much more challenging! I put small chunks of fruit inside them and cap them with another veggie (squash slices are great for this!) or one of the thin strips of wood, and they really have to work to get them out. The pots already have small holes in the bottom, so they're really easy to thread onto the skewer. I vary whether the pots are right-side-up or upside-down.

Today I went to our local Asian/International grocery store and bought some more foraging loot. I got rice paper wrappers, bamboo leaves, and wooden skewers. The rice paper wrappers have to be soaked before becoming flexible, but the bamboo leaves are perfect. They should hold me over until corn season comes and I can dry a bunch of corn husks. :)

Our local pet store had some disposable plastic bird feeders for wild birds, so we bought one for our caiques. :) They'll get their pellets in it tomorrow.

( pictures! )

My two caiques are full-time foragers, and recently I've been looking for ways to switch things up a bit. They're pretty savvy about their two foraging "dishes", so those aren't much of a challenge anymore. This weekend I gave them two new foraging opportunities: the "dish of fluff" and the "fruit in a cube".

The Dish of Fluff is simply a stainless steel, wall-mounted dish that I fill with Carefresh (recycled newspaper bedding) into which I mix their pellets plus a few treats and foot toys.


The Fruit in a Cube is a set of nesting baby blocks with differently shaped holes on each side. I put a piece of fresh coconut in the shell and an apple slice wrapped in paper into a medium block, then nested it into the bigger blocks. They have to work to get the treats out through the holes.


( How did they like them? )

We've also turned our pet rat, Timmy, into a full-time forager. I've started wrapping each of his meal portions in several phone book pages, which he rips open to get at the food and then incorporates into his nest. The contents of each packet vary: some days he'll get a big rat food pellet, some days a seed mix, and sometimes Just Veggies or dried fruit or whole-grain cereal mixed in. Sometimes he even gets a nut to chew open!

Since he can rip through paper almost instantly, we've made this more challenging for him by stuffing the packets inside toilet-paper tubes or his log toy or house toy. Sections of wrapping-paper tube are also great, since they are much heavier and take longer to chew.

(This works for birds, too - I'll wrap their food or treats in newspaper and stuff it into cardboard tubes for them to forage from.)

I found this article (thanks to a post on All Things Feathered) about captive bird enrichment at the Edinburgh Zoo. It's full of really excellent foraging ideas! (Note: It's in PDF format.)