For The Bird Who Won’t Play With Toys

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Camelot Macaws

When you have a bird who won’t touch the toys you give, it’s very disheartening. Birds need to be active, and they need something to mentally engage them which playing with toys does. Especially with all the different types of toys out there.

The first thing you need to try with a bird who refuses to play with toys, is make sure you’ve tried every type of toy before assuming your bird doesn’t like them. I’ve taken in a lot of birds, and sometimes they just don’t like the type of toys you’re offering.

Blue throated macaw

Here is a list of the types of toys there are for parrots, to make sure you have really tried them all!

1. Shreddables (anything made out of wood or something that can literally be shredded into pieces)
2. Food finding (toys that contain food inside of them)
3. Puzzles (mentally challenging toys your bird has to figure out how to open or solve)
4. Busy toys (swings, boings, ladders, nets, anything that your bird actually gets on to use to get around but can also play on too. These toys can be used instead of some perches to make your bird more active in his cage!)
5. Play gyms & food finding trees (these are used outside of the cage and contain many toys on and around them)
6. Food toys (literally food made into the toy itself, so the bird is eating the “toy” but the whole thing is really food)
7. Foot toys (small toys that birds like to grab and hang onto with their feet)
8. Noise making (bells, metal toys and anything that makes sound)
9. Any other ones I may have forgotten!

Rose Breasted Cockatoo

If you have tried ALL of those toys and your bird won’t take to ANY of them. Here are some suggestions for you to get your bird to still be active and eventually learn to like toys.

TRAINING!

Ah yes, the wonderful world of parrot training and what BirdTricks.com is ALL ABOUT! Training helps build a line of communication between you and your bird, and teaches your bird that it can learn in the first place. Once you open this line of communication, there is endless possibilities!

You can train your bird to play with toys.

Using the techniques we teach you in all of our parrot training courses, and using the toys that come highly recommended by The Womach Brothers through their monthly toy program, you can simply apply them to getting your bird used to toys and training him to actually engage in them.

So get your clicker, your training course as a refresher, your touch training stick and your bird’s favorite treats… and get started on getting your bird to be the active, happy and healthy bird he needs to be by training him to play with his toys!