Owing and nurturing a bird is equivalent to raising a child. Adopting a pet be it dog, cat, mouse or bird, does not only mean bringing them home. Adoption leads to taking care of them and fulfilling all required needs along with giving unconditional love and care.
The moment you reach home, your pet starts showing love and needs a warm hug or pat. But have you ever thought how they feel when you are not home. All by themselves, no one to talk or play with. Playing with pets is an important part of their development. The way children needs toys, pets also needs the same.
And if you are a parent to bird, you should be aware that birds love staying in groups and alone for 8 to 10 hours when parents are busy working makes them unsocial, lethargic and bored. They start acting weird when parents are home.
As a bird parent, you should not only thing how to keep your baby bird happy but also how to keep him engaged for hours in your absence.
To keep them busy and entertained, it’s advisable to get variety of toys for your pet. Toys will give them the security of someone being around, making them healthy, alert and happy. There are variety of bird toys available ranging from chew, sound and imitation, helping their mental growth and giving them knowledge about different kind of sounds, texture, size, taste and color.
It’s a natural tendency of birds to chew whatever they get in their mouth. Hence, chew toys helps in keeping the beak in good condition and releasing anxiety and stress when they are home alone. Many birds like doing feather plucking which is quite unhealthy and dangerous at times. Chew sticks and cuttlebone are few chew toys you can opt to keep them engaged.
Like the way silence kills us when alone, it becomes quite annoying for birds too. They also get bored listening to their own chirp, Better get a Intelligent Escaping Toy with a sound like a bell or a squeezey.
You can also opt of colorful balls in different sizes, giving them the freedom to hit, hold and sit. Hanging toys to hang on their cage like bells and sticks is also you can choose. These toys will give them the understanding of different sounds and they also get a chance to untie the ribbon, making their beak strong.
Like humans birds also like admiring themselves, so get a cute but solid mirror. Make sure that the ends are bland and the mirror is kept securely so that they don’t hurt themselves.
And if you live in an apartment, you can buy a play gym with fake tree that has branches, nest, rope and dummy birds for them to climb and explorer
Toys will also help your pet bird to expand his energy positively, instead of taking the aggression out on you when you are back from your hard day of work. In aggression bird might hurt himself by rigorous swinging and flapping.
Self- mutilation, feather picking, continuous screaming, destructing household items is something which birds enjoy doing, when left alone and unsupervised. So, giving them a toy will not only give them a company but also a sense of ownership.