How to Choose the Perfect Toys for Your Pet Bird

Toys are critical to a happy life for a wide range of pets beyond cats and dogs -- including birds. Deprived of the challenges they might face in the wild, domesticated birds can get bored and frustrated easily, which can lead to developing issues such as feather plucking, diabetes, obesity, destructiveness, heart disease, and arthritis. The right bird toys can promote much-needed physical activity and mental stimulation, including hours of fun for your feather friend. 

Safety First: Choosing a Toy for Your Bird

Before you run to the pet store or pull out your arts and crafts tools, you need to understand what makes bird toys safe or unsafe. Even among the products specially manufactured for birds, some items might pose hazards for specific types or sizes of birds. For instance, you'll want to check that any toy you purchase doesn't have gaps large enough to entrap your particular bird's beak or toes. A toy small enough for one type of bird could present a choking hazard for a larger species.

More generally, avoid toys that have sharp edges, long metal chains, split-ring attachments that might cause beak injuries, tiny components that might break away and get ingested, or toxic substances such as wax, silver, copper, or zinc. Always examine a prospective plaything with the question, "Could this possibly hurt my bird?"

Chewing Toys for Birds

Birds need to chew things, both for mental stimulation and to keep their beak properly conditioned. Many everyday materials you can find around the house will serve this purpose well. You can offer your bird paper rolls, bits of palm leaves, pine cones that have been thoroughly cleaned in advance, and small chunks of untreated soft wood. You might even make eye-catching little sculptures or mobiles out of these materials. Just steer clear of treated wood, metal pieces, or anything with sharp edges.

Foraging Toys for Birds

Birds are natural foragers, so you'll want to give your bird an opportunity to exercise this instinct. Foraging bird toys typically include baskets or other containers filled with treats or little toys. You can buy these foraging toys at the pet store, make your own out of something as simple as an open-ended plastic carton, or even use a small pinata. Treat dispensers with multiple compartments challenge your bird to figure out creative ways to get into the goodies.

A similar toy, a kind of simple homemade kong, works just as well for birds as it does for cats and dogs. Place a treat inside a toilet paper tube and fold the ends of the tube together. Your bird will have fun working its way into the tube to retrieve the treat.

Perching Toys for Birds

Perching comes as naturally to a bird as breathing, with the right kind of perching offering relief from boredom, an additional source of chewing satisfaction, and an aid to healthy feet and good balance. A wood perch will mimic a bird's natural environment for additional comfort. When setting up one or more wooden perches for your bird, choose woods such as applewood, poplar, pine, balsa, birch, and maple. Avoid unsafe or toxic woods such as red cherry, oak, plywood, cedar, as well as any kind of varnished or painted wood.

Perches become even more enjoyable when they take the form of swings, giving your bird a way to work off some excess energy while building strength. A simple swing consists of a dowel attached to two short lengths of rope, which are knotted at the top to a metal ring attached to a lanyard-hook and suspended from the top of the cage. If you're feeling creative, you can add colorful beads to the lengths of rope. If you want something elaborate, you'll find many options at your local pet store.

Noisemaker Toys for Birds

Birds like to communicate, and as you probably know by now, they love making noise. Noisemaker toys provide fun sensory stimulation while giving your bird another way to communicate and make its presence known. Little bells hung in clusters from plastic chains are an ever-popular option -- one you can either find at a pet shop or construct on your own, using bits of rope instead of chain. A rattle tube is another popular form of bird toy. This item is a clear plastic cylinder, small enough for a bird to grab or throw around, containing colorful little beads or other objects that make a satisfying rattling noise.

Run Your Ideas Past Your Vet First

Even with all this new knowledge at your disposal, it's possible to let an unsafe or questionable choice pass by you as you select the ideal toys for your bird. To play it extra-safe, talk to your avian veterinarian in advance to make sure you're buying or crafting the right kinds of toys for your bird's particular species, size, and needs. Your bird will end up having a world of fun, while you'll feel worlds better about its health and wellness!