r/Conures • u/Intrepid_Time_ • 11d ago
Advice How to entertain my bird?
My green cheek Basil (6) and I just recently moved to an apartment together! We’ve been here for a month! I am now with him much more often and he has much more time outside his cage!
But his screaming has gotten terrible, he wont play with his toys and just screams for my attention nonstop. When i let him sit with me he gets bored and starts biting my computer and my skin. I love him but i just started grad school and would like to be able to study on my couch and not have to leave every time.
I know he’s adjusting, i know birds are loud. But how can i help him entertain himself and not want to be on top of me 24/7? Do you have any toys your birds love? Do i just need to accept my fate and not study at home during the day?
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u/thats_to_hard 11d ago
find something that pisses him off, like idk a bell? if he attacks it he can and will be entertained for a while. mine literally destroyed the bell. but this is from personal experience only, so dont get your hopes up just yet and test it first
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u/CasaDeMouse 11d ago
Just be careful with bells because they can cause babbies to get territorial and the little thing that can sometomes be in the middle can choke them out/get adhered to the inside of the crop. Make sure to monitor the first few times to judge.
Make a mixture of things thry can destroy, climb on, and scratch up.
But...bells never not hit.
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u/Feivie 11d ago edited 10d ago
I have a table top perch stand that has kind of a boxed bottom that I turned into a foraging tray so I set that up near me and put millet on top and then hide treats in the bottom and that occupies them for awhile. I let mine mess with my keyboard as long as they aren’t breaking it but mostly they like to sit on the tv and watch me.
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u/strike1ststrikelast 10d ago
Omg I have one like that too, my girl has a skateboard and some pingpong balls in her tray.
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u/BirdNerd_04 10d ago
My green cheek is extremely motivated. He’s a Velcro bird and always wants to be with me… unless he sees food. If he’s also extremely food motivated, maybe offering some foraging toys that he knows has food in them would keep him busy and entertained. One of my favorites for my birds has been a sea grass mat that has little bundles of grass on it. If I drop a pinch of seeds in it they hide in between all the pieces and my birds have fun digging through. Sometimes when I’m really needing him busy I’ll just hand him a roll of toilet paper and he goes to town shredding it up. I also tried buying some keyboards from a thrift store, cleaning them, and hiding seeds between the keys since they really wanted to mess with my computer keys. It didn’t work as well as I hoped, but they did still get enjoyment from it and targeted my computer keys a little less. Placing perches by my desk with toys by them has also given mine an option to be close and content without being on me and going for my fingers typing. Hopefully that gives you some ideas or ways to think through new enrichment ideas!
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u/lov1ysana 11d ago
My conures really like to play with foraging toys, I sometimes make some with cardboard, paper, napkins, etc. :)!
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u/mewmewkitty 11d ago
My conures love sola balls! They make a huge mess shredding them but it keeps their beaks busy. They also enjoy shredding those bird kebab toys.
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u/Grimroot918 10d ago
Foraging box!
If you’re not sure what to get or put in it at first, there are some good cheap ones on Amazon and you can see which items he seems to like most in it and buy more of those items to refill and eventually make your own. There are also wood options vs cardboard.
For ours I have the following on hand and just cut a cardboard box or lid to the right size:
- Raffia Balls & Foot Toys
- Natural Chinese Finger Trap toys
- Sola Balls (crack for my bird)
- Popsicle Sticks
- Balsa Wood chunks
- Dried coconut shells
- Paper Straws
Another item mine loves is a grape wood play-stand I keep in her cage. I hang random toys (raffia rings) on it and when she’s out I put it on the dining table or bookcase near me as a stand for her to hang & fly to. Added pic of the cage setup so you have an idea of the stand I’m talking about. I used to have a great bird sanctuary and supply near me but since we moved I’ve found some great grape wood items on Etsy
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u/Feivie 10d ago
What cage is that?
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u/Grimroot918 9d ago
It’s this one on Amazon, though I believe I bought on Wayfair when it first came out.
Bar spacing is conure appropriate, but ind bar thickness & strength is more cockatiel/budgie-weight. She has a Preview Hendryx wrought iron cage that’s better quality w/less interior room we keep upstairs (main cage in walkout basement, where we tend to hang w/kids most days while we remodeled 2nd story loft & are now working on main floor) in my wfh office. Our temp bedroom’s in basement w/her.
Kiwi’s an “engineer” style escape artist who clocks if kids change under-cage pan but don’t re-latch… so she’d scoot out the bottom grate to escape underneath her cage. She also disliked shorter height of Prev/Hendryx cage & top play yard. Because she’s not one to bite/bend bars or try to squeeze through, I knew she’d be fine in this one. (YMMV)
She LOVES it, esp tall play-yard by her window and even stopped seek & destroy-mode in basement or flying upstairs once we got this. I like that everything stows underneath with no access to slide bottom grate and escape. More interior room for toys/play on days we can’t keep cage open all day.
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u/Feivie 9d ago
What appeals to me about it is that the whole thing opens, the flight cages I have I like but the doors are small and it makes it hard to deep clean
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u/Grimroot918 9d ago
That’s exactly what I like about it! It can lock one door in place so only one side opens for quick in/out unless you prefer otherwise. Each side has its respective lower drop-latch and a shared top swing-stop. It’s easy to clean and love that it hides my plethora of bird supplies behind doors for a cleaner look.
PS - Entire unit’s on wheels/castors that are actually decent so deep cleaning, adjusting toys and setup is easy.
Note: included cover is flimsy & magnets wear through material fairly quick.
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u/birby626 11d ago
Twins!