What is a foraging toy?

To forage means to rummage or root around for food, the activity at which a wild parrot spends the largest part of his day. And a toy, in a parrot’s world, is pretty much anything from which it gains benefit. Therefore, by definition, a foraging toy can be anything the enables a search for food, even another food. We can use foods as foraging toys.

As expected, the very best opportunities for food foraging are provided by nature itself. Nuts and peas in the pod are perfect examples of foods that are built into their own foraging ...

In the last couple of weeks my personal facebook messages and email inbox have gone nuts and I admit to having missed messages, notifications and yeah I’ve been kind of in my own world after the death of my dog so when I have replied I’m not overly sure how coherent I’ve been! Birdtricks followers have been particularly supportive of me lately ...

Have you ever blown an entire week’s wage on a new indoor cage for your parrot and then discovered that it sucks? I challenge anyone who has done that to refrain from complaining about it!
About 6 months ago, that’s exactly what happened to me. I decided to ‘upgrade’ my male eclectus parrot’s cage. Stainless steel cages aren’t readily available in Australia, so his old cage was a powder coated one. Unfortunately, they ...

My Blue and Gold Macaw named Fid joined my flock back in February this year. He went through the standard ‘new bird’ vet consultation and was diagnosed with psittacosis and an assortment of other much more minor problems.

When I last wrote about him, Fid’s was health was steadily improving and I’d finally solved the issue of his terrible sleeping habits and fear of the dark by giving him ...

I live with a Rosebreasted Cockatoo (Galah) who is at least 60 years old. Impressive considering that in the wild their expected lifespan is 30 years. I can’t tell you his exact age because anyone who knew him 60 years ago is now dead and that’s as far back has I have been able to trace him. What knowledge I have of his history, comes from the descendants of his ...