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Toys, like the ones shown in Figure 4-3, are not optional when it comes to pet birds. A constant variety of interesting and destructible toys is essential to your bird’s mental and physical well-being. They give your bird something to do with both his mind and his body, keeping him fit and staving off boredom. A bored bird is at high risk for behavioral and health problems, such as feather picking.

Photograph by Kim Campbell Thornton

FIGURE 4-3: Good bird stores, pet stores, and online retailers carry every kind of toy your bird could possibly want or need.

Providing play and opportunities to perform natural behaviors such as foraging for food are an essential part of living with a bird. You may have heard it called enrichment, a term that encompasses puzzle toys; destructible toys; multiple perching sites; stainless-steel baffle cages filled with treats, fruit, veggies, toys, or shredding material; and play areas with climbing and swinging objects, to name just a few of the ways we can benefit birds by addressing their mental health needs.

Different types of toys serve different functions. Some toys entertain, some are brain games, some let birds practice their amazing manipulation skills, and some are just for tearing apart. Anyone with a young child — or who remembers being one — knows how much fun that is.

Foraging (the act of searching for and finding food) is a natural behavior of birds and other animals. Many avian species spend more than half their day foraging and eating. Birds who don’t have the opportunity to forage are missing out on an important normal part of bird life. Ways to encourage foraging include toys that require birds to “work” for their meals by chewing, manipulating, or opening objects to get at food. You can scatter foraging items on cage bottoms; use branches, leaves, or clean shavings to hide food for your bird to seek out; and offer whole nuts for your bird to crack.