A more natural way of foraging!

Plates full of fresh, untreated dandelion and daisy flowers that were hiding Avian Organics Cazuela and Bolivian Bliss.

Wild IRNs eat fresh flowers as a part of their diet, so I try to incoporate as much of fresh, safe and healthy flowers and herbs into her diet as I can!  Also, I like to make it fun, along the way!

siting pretty with a flower in her beak! I like to see her having so much fun with it!

Enjoying the sun

The weather has been so nice, so the birdies got to spend some time outside, enjoying the sunshine and getting some vitamin D3!

Spending time outside was especially beneficial to Lino. He hurt his beak really bad a month or so ago. He got scared of something outside and flew into the window, even though I have curtains. Because of that, middle part of his beak was bruised and eventually stared to flake. This pictures were taken a week ago, so you can only see “the before” part, not how well his beak has healed.

A flower for you

I love to give my parrots fresh flowers and branches if I can.

These are two bouquets they got today

Because not everything is showing very well, here’s a list of what it’s made of: fresh willow branches, fresh fruit branches ( this is a type of apple if I’m not mistaken. My neighbor cut one branch for me), dandelion flowers and greens and daisy flowers! Be sure everything you give your parrots isn’t sprayed with pesticides or anything else and washed before you give a plant to your parrot.

Both of them enjoy these types of toys very much and especially happy that Ringo does, because a wild IRN’s diet consists of flowers, too.

 

A sunny day out

Saturday was such a nice, sunny and warm day, so I rolled out their cages and let them be outside for a while. Here’s a short video of them

 

Hazelnut party!

Last Friday I went a bit saw-happy and took down a few hazelnut branches. My plan was to turn them into branches and toy parts for my parrots and the plan worked out pretty well in the end.

One of many reasons why I love hazelnut for toy parts is because it’s a soft wood like willow and cottonwood, so during those  hormonal times, it helps a lot by keeping my parrots happy and not screaming.  Also, I know that willow coins are difficult to come by, so hazelnut makes a nice substitute for it, if your parrot is an avid willow chewer.

Making branches is quite easy if you use some common sense; use only branches that you KNOW weren’t treated with anything. If you don’t have a garden, maybe some of your friends do? Clean your branches with a pressure cleaner like Kercher or Mini-wash and after that bake them. It’s an easy procedure and relatively quick to do.

I thoroughly inspect every branch BEFORE I cut it and that’s my advice for everyone making their own perches. If something looks a bit odd, it’s better to avoid the hole thing than to be sorry later on.

From my endeavor I got 18 branches for their cages. One of the reason I like softwood branches is, from my experience at least, that softer woods take wonderful care of parrots nails. In the five years I have had parrots, not once did I had to take them to the vet to get their nails groomed, nor did they ever had a nail grooming perch.

Yesterday I rearranged their cages and decorated them with new perches

Looking at the pictures it’s really hard to believe that in each cage there are 13 or so perches and in Lino’s cage an 12″ Oddball.

When it comes to perches, I believe that the bigger the diversity the better. I only have one rule though; just one cotton item per cage at a time. Ringo has a  8″ Ring swing from Oliver’s Garden and Lino has an 12″ Oddball, also from Oliver’s Garden. I try to keep their cages on a more woodsy level and to be honest, I like it that way and it seems to me that they like it also.  I will take better pictures of their cages once I have better lighting.

From the odds and ends I had left from perch making, I made wood sticks and made a few toys. Here’s one of them:

This toy is made out of soft pine and lots of hazelnut sticks. I think Lino will go nuts for this one.

When everything else fails- willow and hazelnut to the rescue

 

Ringo, my IRN is 5 years old.  This means that hormone season is such a wonderful and unforgettable  time with her. To make coexisting much, MUCH more pleasant, I try to keep her beak busy with chewing, not screaming.

To do so, I often call my two best friends- willow and hazelnut.

Willow branches are the green ones and hazelnut are the brown ones. Both trees are quite easy to recognize.  If your parrots love willow coins, than they will also love hazelnut wood. It’s a soft, snappy wood with not to thick bark. My parrots love to chew on it and it keeps their beaks busy.

Because spring is slowly coming and it’s getting warmer each day,  branches are filled with little buds. Those buds are nutritious and  a great fun to chew. I love this type of all natural toys, not just in a sense that the branches weren’t treated with anything, but also that this is how they would play in the wild. I’ve noticed that they like this types of toys very much. It’s a lot of fun to watch them chew on willow and hazelnut, taking their bouquets slowly apart.

I tied branches together into small parrot bouquets and hung inside of their cages Ringo wasn’t too cooperative when it came to taking pictures of her, fortunately Lino stepped up to the plate.

Toy making day

I had two very busy weeks, so my entire toy “stash” was turned into splinters. I have a few more extremely busy weeks ahead of me, so it was time to replenish my bird toy box.

I dug into my toy parts and this is what I came up with :

Ringo’s toys

Ringo, my IRN is affraid of larger toys, anything larger than her will send her flying away. Budgie sized toys are perfect for her. I made her a couple of toys using cork (you can read about cork here) , balsa, pine, various shredders, paper cups and some palm bags.

Another toy I made for her, that is already in her cage being chewed up. It’s a palm bag filled with paper, some natural shredders, paper cups and balsa. I really like it and best of all, she likes it. She’s really nesty at the moment, so lots and LOTS of shreddables does a wonderful job at keeping her mind and beak occupied.

Lino’s   toys

Lino loves wood more than anything. Any type of wood will do, he really isn’t picky. For his toys I used willow, white pine, fir, balsa and cork. All of the toy parts are untreated. I buy white pine and fir at a local lumber mill, so I know where does it come from and what has it been treated with, i.e what it hasn’t been treated with.

Next two toys are already in his cage, being chewed up.

I really like this horizontal toy because it has a lot of wood to chew and I think it turned out pretty nice, if I may say so.

Hopefully, this will hold us until the end of the week.

Cork- bird safe toy

When someone mentions cork, first thing that comes to mind is vine, right? Well, there’s a bigger picture behind it in the parrot world.  Cork, as you can see it as a stopper in vine bottles, is the end product. It all starts from a cork oak tree, to be precise it’s bark.

Cork oak is a tree native to South-West Europe and North Africa and from there it’s transported all over the world and than used in various products. Cork oak bark is thick, but soft what makes it an excellent choice for a natural parrot chew toy, you can make it into a swing, a balcony and anything else your creativity gives you.

Be sure you’re buying untreated, unprocessed cork oak bark, because it’s the only safe cork for your parrots.

In the name of love…

For toys, birds do funny things

 

Foraging baskets

I had a few willow baskets around the house. My parrots love willow/vine items, so every time I see an untreated basket I buy one.

So, yesterday I took all three and filled them up with lots of goodies, everything but the kitchen sink went in there. For food I used Avian Organics dry mixes- Cazuela, Bolivian Bliss, Cravings, Veggie Bars, Truffles and some seed.

For the first basket I used paper cups, some were filled with food, some were left empty. I even scattered some food around the bottom of the basket. Than I added wood parts, leftover toy parts, wood beads, etc.

After I filled the first basket, I realized that I’m all out of paper cups, so the food for the next two was wrapped in kitchen towels. I took the baskets and placed them on the playgrounds. Surprisingly, this bought me 2 hours of peace and quiet

I like this type of toys because it gives them something to do while out of the cage, so they don’t just perch and watch the world go by. They can forage, chew wood and eventually, destroy the basket it self. Needless to say, I have to buy more baskets