We love our parrots. We would like to spend as much time as we could to be with them. However, the truth is it is almost impossible to stay with them 24/7. When we have go out for work or school, or when we have to spend time hanging out with our human friends, we have to leave them alone. Parrots get bored easily when they are alone, and when they get bored, they tend to develop unwanted behaviours like biting, screaming, and plucking. We definitely don’t want that happen! So how should we help our feathered friends kill the time when they are all by themselves? Since we can not just leave the TV on for them to watch or let them play with video games like real kids do, we need to give them physical toys to keep them occupied. There are tons of fun parrot toys available on the market, which ones should we choose? Basically, all the parrot toys are designed to fulfill specific needs for our parrots. Based on the common needs for parrots, there are 5 types of toys we should have for them.

Chewing/Shredding Toys

Parrots use their beaks to explore the world, and the main activities they do using their beaks are chewing and shredding. These activities are not only to let me enjoy the accomplishment of destruction but also to reduce anxiety when they are scared or nervous. For most of the larger parrots, chewing the harder wood can also prevent the over grown of their beaks. So we should always provide our parrots with toys made of the different type of safe materials like wood, paper, bagel, leather, vine ball, bamboo, mahogany, loofah to let me enjoy the chewing and shredding fun. 

Foraging Toys

The wild parrots have to spend a lot of their time to forage for food in the nature. The foraging activities will keep them busy most of their day, and the foraging process is an excellent exercise to them both physically and mentally. The pet parrots on the other hand, don’t usually get the chance to forage since their food and treats are already well prepared by us, the owners. Since they don’t need to spend time and energy to forage, they will easily be getting lazy and bored. That’s one of the reasons for parrots to get overweight, and develop the plucking behaviour. With the foraging toys, you can bring the lacking foraging activities back to your parrots’ life. Hiding the food and treat in different foraging toys can physically and mentally challenge your parrots and let them have more fun when eating so they are less likely to get bored. 

Preening Toys

Parrots spend a lot of time to on preening to keep their feathers in good shape. However, when they get bored or stressful, they tend to over-preen themselves, that will end up damaging their feathers. So our parrots need the preening toys with different shapes and textures, such as sisal, ropes, paper, and leather, to switch their attention and relief the boredom and stress.  

Exercising Toys

Compare with the parrots who are living in the wild, our pet parrots are getting much less exercises, especially when some of them have to stay in the cage most of the time. The lack of exercise will cause the over weight of the parrots and develop the condition of fatty liver disease. So we to need to have a variety of exercising toys, such as ladders, swings, bungees, to encourage them to exercise more and stay healthy. 

Foot Toys   

Foot toy is a great addition to our parrot toy collection. Foot toys for parrots are usually designed to be small and easy to grasp. Foot toys are not like those hang toys that only allow the parrots to play inside of the cage. Parrots can play with their foot almost anywhere. Make sure to have some foot toys for your parrots to let them have some fun outside of the cage, and to enhance their strength.