Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Orlando, FL
Foraging for a nutriberry: Galah “Bandit”

Foraging seems like a wild and time consuming idea for a lot of people, but it’s not and it is WORTH IT for your bird to build confidence. I can’t even explain how important it is for your bird not to be sitting around all day bored out of its mind. Boredom causes a huge percent of the behavior problems out there in birds today such as plucking, aggression and biting, etc…

So let’s talk about foraging for beginners, how to do it and what you need to get started today with your bird, I promise it’s EASY!

Photo by www.beadjam.com

Easy Foraging Tip #1: Non-treated pieces of wood, wooden beads, etc. (non-toxic)

Simply start your bird’s first day of foraging by placing these pieces of wood or wooden beads (or both) inside your bird’s food dish along with its pellets. The first day add a few, the next day add some more and then more and more until your bird has to go from eating around the wooden pieces to picking out the pieces in order to get to what he wants to eat.

Some birds will start playing with the pieces, or begin destroying them into small pieces which is great. That’s what you want. Make your bird work harder and harder as he has more and more beads and pieces to pull out of the dish to get to the pellets he wants to eat. Some birds may avoid them and eat around them and that’s okay too.

Photo by www.richwallerart.com

Easy Foraging Tip #2: Plain white paper.

You can either fold the paper like shown above or crumble little pieces up like this:

Have them be the same size as the wooden beads and add them into the dish as well. This will get your bird picking something up and tossing it out or shredding the paper that’s in the way of his food. You can put all different sized pieces in there and even wrap some pellets up in some of the pieces for him to see and discover.

Easy Foraging Tip #3: More white paper.

This time you’re using sheets of white paper. Take the sheet and lay it over your bird’s food dish half way or 1/4 of the way so your bird can still mostly see the food inside. By either mother nature or your bird, your bird will move the paper off of it. Do this for a few days until you can cover the bowl completely and your bird moves the paper off of its bowl to eat.

You should still have all the wooden beads and pieces of small paper inside the dish.

Easy Foraging Tip #4: Using more white paper… and a rubber band…

Place the white paper over the food bowl and this time poke a hole in the center of the paper and wrap it around the food dish so it holds a bit tightly but don’t secure it with anything.

Once your bird is examining it curiously and moving it off the food dish, then secure the paper down with a rubber band and the hole poked in the middle to try to get your bird to start from the hole and break open the rest of the paper to get to its food inside.

Easy Foraging Tip #5: Now do a little less with what ya got.

Now do the same thing with no poked hole. Just secure the paper around the food dish and don’t poke a hole, leave that part up to your bird.

Photo by Jamieleigh
Location: Orlando, FL
Foraging: Galah “Bandit”

These tips will get you started on very basic and super simple ways to get your bird to start knowing about what foraging is all about in easy steps for both of you. Once your bird has this mastered, secure down more layers of paper to make it thicker and harder for your bird to break through.

If you’re more of a video type of person, I made this pretty awesomely unorganized video demonstrating it all for you:

Have fun and get creative, the possibilities with foraging are endless!

Toco toucan Rocko is SUCH a great eater. Lately I’ve been branching out and trying new things and I’m finding it helps so much to keep a list of what my birds can eat, what is good for them and what’s better used in moderation right in my kitchen so that those items do or don’t make it on a grocery list and into their mouths later.

For Christmas our friend sent us a box full of pears, and they were PERFECTLY ripe! I stabbed a couple through a skewer for the first time ever for Rocko and he LOVED the new game of “eating the pear”. I started by holding it for him, then once he got the hang of it after I peeled some of the skin off to expose the juicy fruit, I was able to attach it right by his food dish at the perfect height for him to dig into it.

He had a blast and it let me know that I could pit the pears next time and hang them on the skewer for him again in the future. Skewers have always worked perfectly well for my toucans in the past and I love that Rocko appreciates them too.

Another thing you can do with toucans is use twine or thread of some sort and string the fruit along that, almost like Christmas-light style and weave it or hang it upon their aviaries/cages for them to eat. Since toucans can’t chew or destroy things like parrots, they are much easier to provide foraging opportunities for that won’t be of one time use!

(Always omit seeds and pits when using the skewer, this was just a test with Rocko and wasn’t left in his cage all day but if you plan on leaving it cut the fruit and take the cores out so it’s safe for your birds. Even toucans shouldn’t have seeds.)

An active bird is a healthy bird. Plain and simple.

I love trying out new recipes and for the recipes I’ve been working on for my birds, I serve it on a plate to see if they like it or not. It’s like having my own personal taste testers. If they eat it, I’ve succeeded and if they don’t well then I won’t be serving that again or I’ll be looking for ways to change it just enough to get them to eat it. So far I’ve come up with 29 successful recipes my birds love and once I know they like them, I start finding ways to make them into foraging toys.

Because feeding your bird out of a dish is one of the (second) worst things you can do (the first being clipping your bird’s wings).

That’s right. Feeding your bird out of a dish is too easy, it leaves him to be bored the rest of the day and you want your bird to be healthy and active.

This means in his cage AND out.

That’s why foraging opportunities are so important. You can make your own if you’re really broke and can’t afford any (or if you’re a genius-ly creative person too!)

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Petshops sell calcium/cuttlebone perches and toys you can easily hang in your bird’s cage. They aren’t too expensive.
• Wrap your bird’s pellets (with your bird watching you) in pieces of paper and put them throughout your bird’s cage. Have some of them be empty!
• Use a skewer to hang your bird’s favorite fruits and veggies and let it pick from it.
• Fill toys with bits of treats and pellets.