Update: Wayne’s Back in Business

After being MIA for a few weeks, WaynesParrotStuff.com is live on the Web again. Wayne updated his site to let everyone know that he is now working with The Golden Cockatoo to distribute his bottlebrush gyms. This will leave him free just to build his parrot playstands while the Golden Cockatoo deals with taking orders and fulfilling inventory.

Disclaimer: I see that The Golden Cockatoo also sells parrots. I’m really not a fan of pet stores selling any birds larger than cockatiels, so I have mixed feelings about recommending the store. Take that for whatever it’s worth to you. (Please visit Petfinder.com if you’re looking to add a bird to your family.)

See my previous post for my review of Wayne’s bottlebrush parrot stands.

Your Parrot Won’t Play with Toys?

One question that seems to come up a lot (at least based on Google searches that drive traffic to this site), is about pet birds not playing with toys.

Q: Why won’t my parrot play with his toys?

It’s possible your parrot doesn’t know how to play with toys. If he’s never learned, your pet bird may need you to show him. You might want to take a toy and play with it in front of him; it helps if there are a couple people doing this. Don’t give it to him, just demonstrate how much fun you’re having (don’t feel silly about being overly animated). You can even make a show of keeping it away. This should stoke your parrot’s curiosity. Like children, they want to know what the fun is about and have what they think they’re not supposed to.

After a while of having fun with the toy yourself, include your bird. Show him how it’s supposed to be played with and then play with him. Once he understands the concept he will very likely start playing with it by himself.

If you do that a couple of times, he’ll probably have an “ah ha” moment when he realizes that toys are meant to be played with and he’ll start playing with other toys on his own. And “toys” don’t need to be limited to stuff that’s marketed as “bird toys.” Anything made of bird-safe materials can be fun!

Photo of Hector by redvers

If your parrot is afraid of toys or new things in his cage, you can take a similar approach. In this case, you’ll want to keep the objects out of his cage and let him look at them from across the room — allow him to get used to and comfortable with the toys from a distance. After a day, you can bring the object just a little bit closer to his cage and, again, let you watch you play. If he’s fearful, you might need to tone down your enthusiasm and play with the toy gently. Hold it against your face, stroke it, show him that it’s something gentle and nonthreatening.

Do you have the wrong kinds of toys? If you bought lots of acrylic toys because they’re marketed as being “bird proof” and indestructible, you also have toys that aren’t as much fun to play with. Parrots like to… they need to… destroy things. It’s an instinct they need to satisfy.

Sometimes people stop buying wooden toys for the parrots because “my bird only destroyed it.” That’s great! To a bird, that IS playing. The whole purpose of wooden bird toys is for parrots to make toothpicks and sawdust out of them. Indestructible toys just aren’t very satisfying if that’s the only kind of toy your bird has.

Buying new toothpick-making materials on a weekly basis can get pricey, but there are plenty of sites on the web that will show you how to make cheap, fun toys for a fraction of their retail cost.

Photo of Kiwi by The Gut

Some birds, especially larger parrots, are big fans of puzzles and mechanical objects to manipulate (like screws and bolts). I’ve read more than one story about cockatoos and macaws dismantling their own cages. For those kinds of birds, a playstation with bird-safe stuff to manipulate can provide lots of entertainment. Other birds might not be interested at all. I got Stewie a toy with gears and cranks and he couldn’t care any less about it.

You’ll need to experiment to see what tickles your individual bird’s fancy.

Q: What are some of the best toys for conures or other parrots?

The simple answer is: the ones your bird will play with. Like I said earlier, that may require a little bit of experimentation. Just because you bought him a toy once and he didn’t touch it, doesn’t mean that you should stop giving him things to play with.

Photo of Hatch by lkalliance

You also want to provide your bird with a wide variety of toys: toys that birds can manipulate, shredder toys, toys to preen, toys that encourage foraging behavior. (Check out Stuff My Conure Likes for Stewie’s toy and treat recommendations)

I prefer Drs. Foster and Smith for most of my bird supplies. Click on the banner below to support this website.

Stuff My Conure Likes

I thought I’d compile another list of things my conure likes. Mind you, this is only Stewie-approved stuff… it doesn’t include things I think he ought to like, things I’ve purchased for him and he’s not interested in or things I just think you ought to have in case of birdie emergencies.

The list may expand in the future, but without further ado, in no particular order, stuff my conure really digs:

• Happy Hut Hideaway
• Colored Rings Game
• Medium Cozy Corner
• Sisal Boing
• Sunny Orchard Nutri-Berries 3 lbs
• AvianMaintenance Pellets
• Small Shredder Pinata
• Hanging Foraging Puzzle
• Triangle Teaser Chew Toy
• Dehydrated Veggies
• Last, but certainly not least, Wayne’s Bottlebrush Play Gym

Every bird has its own peculiar likes and habits, so your mileage will vary, but for what it’s worth, these are my bird’s favorite toys and treats.

In Praise of Wayne’s Bottle Brush Gyms

UPDATE: WaynesParrotStuff.com is back up with a message that reads: This week, I hired a distributor to handle my Bottlebrush stuff. The Golden Cockatoo is a local South Florida bird store and one of the finest bird stores in the country. I’m going to do what I do best, build unique and original Bottlebrush stuff, and The Golden Cockatoo will handle all the sales and shipping. Over the nest weeks and months, I’ll be building up their inventory and our intention is to provide you with more Bottlebrush stuff then you’ve ever seen, and it’ll ship quick so you’ll get it fast.

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One of the best investments I’ve ever made was a bottlebrush gym from Wayne’s Parrot Stuff. The website, to be really honest, is atrocious, even by 1997 standards. Sorry. But, and this is a big BUT… the parrot play gyms he sells on that site are absolutely superior. Wayne clearly spends more time hand-crafting his parrot play stands than he does thinking about websites.

Note: The store seems to be down as of now, and he doesn’t always have inventory on eBay. I recommend signing up for alerts to let you know when Wayne puts more bottle brush play gyms up on eBay.

The picture on the left is from when I unpacked and assembled it months ago. At this point it’s covered in toys. Sorry for the terrible white balance - for reference, that tray is made of formica manufactured to look like wood and it exactly matches my “birch effect” Ikea furniture! Wayne has some other faux-wood and solid-color finishes to suit most design aesthetics.

I Needed Convincing: Why Buy Another Gym?

I’ll admit that I was really skeptical about his claims. He made it sound like gyms made out of bottle brush wood were the answer to everything. Having heard quite a few good things, I decided to contact him.

I explained that Stewie has a gym that he doesn’t really use. At the time, Stewie wasn’t flighted, so he’d stay there if I put him on it. And he’d climb to the top if he was looking for a safer/higher place and it was close by. But he didn’t play on it.

Wayne assured me that this is a problem with conventional playstands but not bottlebrush parrot gyms because the wood is softer and has lots of texture. The reason parrots don’t use most play stands fully is that they don’t feel very secure, their footing unsure on the slippery perches.

Hmm, was I really going to spend a couple hundred dollars only to end up having Stewie sit on one branch like a lump on a log? I thought I’d take that chance (nothing’s too good for my little Stu-monster).

Stewie’s Reaction to the Play Stand

Stewie being the scaredy bird that he is first looked at that contraption with suspicion, but he didn’t freak out as he was prone to doing. (You’d have thought he was an African Grey or something, with those phobias.) I used a Nutriberry to lure him on

… and it was love!

Remember those happy conure noises I wrote about earlier — the “eeeeh of glee” in particular? He makes those all the time now while chewing on the bottle brush.

I won’t go on about the various attributes of Wayne’s bottlebrush gyms, since you can go read about that on his website. Suffice it to say that Stewie really likes his - surprising because he’s not the kind to go gah-gah over anything. Everything Wayne told me about the benefits of bottlebrush was true.

Now that Stewie is flighted, he pretty much flies to the play gym as soon as I let him out, going back to the cage only to get a drink of water.

My only minor critique would be that the branches extend all the way to the edge of the platform, which means that when Stewie is sitting on the edge of a branch anything (everything) he drops lands on the floor not in the tray. It’s a trade off, though. If the branches were shorter there would be less usable space to climb on; if the platform/tray were bigger the play stand would take up more space.

Really, I’m Just a Happy Customer. Honest!

Any biases or special interest you need to know about that may have influence this review? Nope, I’m not an affiliate of Wayne’s Parrot Stuff; I don’t benefit in any way if he ever sells anything else. I gave his products a shot because I heard good things from other bird owners and now I’m doing my part to spread the word about his very cool parrot stands. This is just an example of genuine word of mouth marketing in practice.

I’ll post some more pictures of the stand — all decked out in toys and with a birdie playing on it — when I get a chance.

Visit The Golden Cockatoo to purchase one of Wayne’s creations.

Clicker Training Coins in a Piggy Bank

I found a cute little toy store in Clarendon with a completely unusable Web interface, but a great brick-and-mortar store. As soon as I walked by the Kinder Haus I knew I had to go in (and my companion knew it was for Stewie, no foolin’ him) and I found lots of great, high-quality (German-made) toys.

Since I’d been looking for a piggy bank, I was very pleased to find a small ceramic bank that was just the right size for Stewie. And Stewie already had “coins” he could use for this prop trick: the little chips from the Connect Four game were the perfect size. (I don’t want him using real coins because they are usually filthy, plus I don’t know if the metals are a problem.)

So the next prop trick we’ll be working on is “coins in the piggy bank.” I’ve introduced the prop to him and so far he’s not very adept at putting the coins in the slot. Mostly he just places them flat on top and then watches them slide off. Silly bugger. But he has gotten it a few times, so I’m optimistic he’ll master it in just a few sessions.

Small Clicker Training Props for Birds

This is the bird prop I got for Stewie from Nature’s Chest — it’s intended to teach him color discrimination. Unfortunately it’s too small. He doesn’t have the dexterity to get the rings onto the peg.I’m going to try to teach him pull the rings off the peg instead and give them to me. He can already retrieve, and he can get the rings off the peg, so the advanced version is for him to give me the color I ask for.

Update: we spent a whole training session just taking the rings off the peg and giving them to me. To start teaching colors, I just said whatever color he was going for anyway (that way he always gets it right!) — so if he went to grab a red ring, I’d say “Bring me RED!” and then reward him. Once we get comfortable with that, I’ll put my hand on top of the other ones so the only one he can get is the one I asked for. Just need to be careful not to get nipped at because he doesn’t like it when someone interferes with his props mid trick.

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This one is the small Psitta Puzzle. For this trick, he needs to put the shapes in the corresponding hole. The description on NatureChest.com says that it might be too big for cockatiels, so I got the smallest one they had, but I probably could have gone a size up on this one too.

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Just How Smart Are Cockatoos? Check It Out!

This cockatoo’s puzzle solving skills are really impressive.

Doesn’t she look like she’s having fun? Just another example of children’s developmental toys making good (large) bird toys too. (Imagine having to keep a toddler entertained and healthy … that’s at least how much work a cockatoo takes too!)

Mr. Monk and the Sun Conure

I’m watching TV today — an episode of Monk (Mr. Monk and the Red Herring) — and imagine my surprise when they feature a sun conure! On the show, Monk goes to a pet store and notices a bird. The geeky pet store clerk says, “You can have him for free. We can’t get rid of him, people keep returning him.” When asked what’s wrong with the bird, the guy says “he depresses people: he doesn’t talk, he just sits there and cleans himself.”

Aughh!!! This is such a huge pet peeve of mine (pun totally intended). An animal is not a toaster oven!! You don’t just return them because they aren’t as “fun” as you thought they’d be. When bringing home a new pet, you make a commitment to him/her. You don’t just exchange it.

This attitude isn’t just writers’ license on a television show; I see people say things like that all the time on the Internet. “Oh, he didn’t bond with my wife, he likes me better, so we’re thinking of returning him and getting a different bird.” Ugh!

Makes me very unhappy. Some people take the decision to bring home a bird much too lightly. (Good reasons NOT to get a parrot)

Oh, and that cage the bird was in (in the fictional pet store) was WAY too small. A conure cage should be at least 20″ in the shortest dimension. Stewie’s cage is 21″w x 32″l x 35″h and I’m actually of the opinion that it’s a little too small (even though I can fit my whole body in it). Once you put toys and perches in a cage, it really starts looking small, fast.

Here’s what a cage that size looks like; notice the conure standing on the door.

More Bird Trick Training (with props)

Stewie got tired of the the “put the ball in the cup trick”… not sure why, but he just doesn’t want to do it anymore.

Here’s a picture of him when he was still eager to do it:

We’ve been working on “put the ring on the peg” but this one has been difficult. To tell the truth, I’ve sort of abandoned the clicker. I’m terrible with it… my timing is off, I’m inconsistent, I’m uncoordinated (I need three hands to handle the prop, the clicker and the treat at the same time). So I’ve been trying to do clicker training without the clicker. It’s slow going.

Here’s the prop:

I originally got him the small version of the toy (I can’t help it, I keep thinking of him as a small bird, not a medium-sized bird), but it was too small. This is a picture of him with the medium-sized Ring Toss prop.

He’s still not very good at it, but he’s done it a few times where I was holding the peg and helped him get the ring onto it. Today I spent a bit of time playing with the rings and peg, picking up the rings in my mouth and putting them on the peg like I want him to do (rather than doing it with my hands). And he did it a few times by himself!

He also likes to throw the rings off the side of the cage, which is cute too (but doesn’t earn him a treat).

DIY Small Bird Toy Idea

I just came across a really simple foraging toy that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg. I stopped by the drug store today and saw a pack of toothbrush travel covers on sale… you know, those containers you snap on over the head of a toothbrush so it doesn’t get all nasty when you travel? I bought a pack of four and filled them with NutriBerries and seeds. Stewie isn’t big into toys that he can’t chew on *unless* there are treats inside. So this is a nice foot-toy-sized plastic container that fits just a little bit of birdie yummies inside that double as a foraging toy.