Archie Bunny!

This is to show what a horrifying mess a rabbit can make in just a few hours! It's a good thing he's cute!
(Sorry about the bad photos)

More toys

Tonka loves little wooden beads, little sticks, and foam beads, so that is ALL that is on this toy. It also has some small pieces of dried indian corn, and some almonds with holes drilled through them tied on at various places.



I couldn't even get a picture of him still, he loved it so much. Since then I have rotated it through his cage several times, and it is over half chewed up. See all the empty stretches of string? Yay!

Foraging Basket #2

This one was really enjoyed, though he didn't chew the basket like I hoped, and he certainly didn't get ALL the toys off. But he would pick out the treats and have fun with any loose bits, so it was pretty successful in my book!

More toys!

I like experimenting with different things to see what Tonka gets excited about. I was hoping he would like the fleece, or the paulie rope at the top, but what he REALLY likes about this toy is pulling the scrap bits of fleece that I poked into the wiffle ball out. I kept poking more back in, and he kept pulling them out!


Each beige cup has treats inside and some sort of toy covering the opening.



I put treats in all the measuring cups, and taped them closed with paper. He'll ignore this one for weeks and then chew every single treat out in one afternoon. Wierdo.




I gave this one to an Austin Parrot Society Member, as well as the next four!

Foraging Ice Cube Tray

Tonka LOVES this, as long as I don't cover it with the paper, lol. He is starting to destroy paper a bit more, so hopefully I can try to cover it again in the future!

Shopping!

Here are some examples of some shopping "sprees" at my favorite place to buy bird toy parts- Dollar Tree! Hands down the best dollar store. A "spree" here might run you a whoppin $20/$30. :)

Foraging toys, thinking outside the box

I had one of these: www.amazon.com/Soda-Bottle-Watering-Well-Birds/dp/B00328QMN6


So I turned it into three foraging toys, for the birds at my work!


This makes a great simple foraging toy, with a few chewies and some seed in it!

Tonka's first foraging toy that he LOVES!

This was a quickie toy I threw together, but he LOVES it so so much, I have had to remake it several times after he chews the plastic up. This is awesome, as he tends to be delicate with his toys and I want to encourage more chewing!

More toys!

First foraging basket

Also a bit ambitious! I just got excited, and over did it a bit! But he had fun, at least, even if it was a bit much.

I started with a basket:


Then gathered a bunch of crap, er... I mean goodies together:


Put it all together:

(see Tonka in the background? He was very interested)

Then added some fresh foods the night before and stored in fridge:


It was in his cage for a day or two and he picked most of the fresh foods off it right away, then seemed to lose interest. I moved it to his playgym after that, and he liked it again!

Here are a few early foraging toys. They were a bit ambitious for a young Tonka. I had mixed results.









I finally got him playing with this one, though he never really seemed to "get" that there was goodies inside, lol.

See in the background, the paper dixie cup? I had much better results with that- just a plain dixie cup, hanging wide open. All he had to do was reach right in and pick something out. Much more his speed at the time! :)

Some early toys I made

I definately got mixed results, as I was/am still learning what Tonka gets really excited about. But he liked this one:

Post #1!

Hello all and welcome! Let me introduce my black cap caique, Tonka. He is just over a year old, and a real twerp, but I love him!

Tonka is not the smartest bird around. Though he is fearless and athletic and outgoing, he has the attention span of a gnat! He also is not very destructive- he prefers dangling by one toe from his toys. Chewing is just so boring! So teaching him to forage has been a step by step process. In my next post, I'll go over some of the baby steps I have had to take with him over the last year, to teach him how to work for his goodies.

I also have four cats, three dogs, and four rabbits, and they will be making appearances from time to time!