Evironment Enrichment (Toys for finchys!!)

[Brette]

I have a few things that I add to my flight cage for my finches to "play" with but i'm sure you guys have tons of other ideas. Please post them! I have to keep my old birdies psychologically stimulated!

[Ginene]

My guys play with greenery like toys. Ivy vines are their FAVORITE!!! Flowers too! They also love their rope preening perches and swings. Got those @ drsfostersandsmith.com. I tried "toys," but they wouldn't touch them.

[Colt]

My birds love all their artificial foliage in their cages. I believe a variety of perches are essential and mine love the swing.

One thing I've always wanted to try but haven't done yet is getting one of those rough green door mats that look like short fake grass. Cutting it into squares and placing it inside something with a lip and sprinkling seed on top of the mat. I've seen people do that for cockatiels and grasskeets and I think groundfeeding birds like doves and finches would enjoy the mental stimulation of "looking" for their food too.

[wildbird]

I have a large shallow reptile dish in each cage & put pebbles & small stones in it, then add some mixed seed so they can dig through it. They have some Timothy hay & love to pick through the oat spray that I got from Petsmart.

[Brette]

Great ideas, I hadn't thought to provide "foraging experiences" so i'm going to try that!

[chirpy]

They are some cool ideas!

[finchmix22]

Love the ideas! My finches absolutely love their swings, so I put more than one in an flight. They also love to tear up the greenery, although, I think they want it for nesting material. As far as foraging, they love to eat seed off the paper towel, rather than the paper plate, but I put their seed and other goodies on the same plate, so they have to look for what they want. I've even seen some playing tug of war with a grated carrot strand. So cute!

[saulosirds]

All my breeding cages/flights have Tupperware containers with dirt and leaf litter in them. I put all of my live food and sprinkle sprout mix in them to give the birds a place to "hunt" for stuff. I 've read in several places that it helps to reduce male aggression in those species that tend to be overly aggressive when it comes to breeding. Plus it helps to keep the feeder insects in a particular area of the cage.

Rob

[lovezebs]

saulosirds
Hi Rob.
I have never heared of that idea. What sort of soil do you use, and what is leaf litter? What sort of live food goes in there? and does any of the live food ever escape and invade the rest of the house? (my worry) Could you take a picture, just to give an idea of what this looks like. You know what they say, it's all in the presentation.

[saulosirds]

Lovezebs

I'll try and put together a little expose on what I do tomorrow a take a few pics. It's pretty straight forward but I'll write it out and give some background on where I source stuff for it.

Rob

[Brenda C]

Sounds very interesting, my indoor cage is the size of four Petco cages, stacked two to a side and two on top. But some dirt and such sounds great I can hardly wait to see your pictures....

[saulosirds]

OK, I'll give this a try and explain a few things.

First off, the store I got my dirt from no longer cares it so I need to "create " my own stuff, which is a story for another post.

The containers I use are these:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-6-Q ... 6/15442432

You can buy them at Walmart for .88 cents a piece. They are 14"x8"x5". You can use any size you want, I choose this size as it has high sides which keeps a lot of things inside.

I put around three to four heaping cups of dirt in the bottom, enough that I could sprout seeds if I want to but not enough that the birds would kick it out if they are digging violently.

I add however much leaf litter: http://www.joshsfrogs.com/substrates-fo ... itter.html as I feel fit, just depends on what I put in there.

You can put coco and feathers in there if you want. I do this when I have a wire cage and the birds fly around and the wind pushes the feathers out of their cage. You can also put sprouting in seeds there if you want to give your birds a foraging experience. When I feed crickets (1/8"), I put them in there with leaf litter so they bugs have a place to hide and the birds can go dig around and hunt for them. I have read in several places that the foraging helps species with aggressive males and allows them to get distracted by hunting bugs.

The containers I use are pretty big in a 30" breeder cage but if you put it in the right spot, it doesn't overwhelm the cage. You can use smaller sized containers but they usually are not high enough to keep in the bugs and if they are too small and deep, birds don't seem to want to get down in the small inside space.

I have yet to find a good way to feed fruit flies in a cage with a wire bottom. They will not stay put inside the dirt containers and once they get beyond the wire, they just drive the birds nuts.

Sorry, my descriptions seem a bit convoluted to me so if anyone has questions, please ask. I will try to get a finished picture of what they look like when I post the dirt making post.

Rob

[Colt]

That's a really neat idea I think I might like to try. Can you get a couple of pictures of the set-up for us? Sally I wonder if this would be effective in the Purple Grenadier cages to keep your males busy and add some extra protein (if you fed bugs) that might help them decide to raise for you.

As far as the fruit flies go, I believe Sunbay chills them and feeds the wingless variety which her birds were able to eat better. Maybe she'll chime in and tell you how to feeds them.

[saulosirds]

Colt

These are pretty straight forward but I've got a pick or two for you I think:


I don't know how to attach more then one picture to a post so I'll add another post with another picture.

I put them on the ground but I had to get a good side view so I was resting it on a perch.

Rob

[saulosirds]

Colt

Won't let me post the other picture as it says its too big. Don't know how to resize in Windows 8. I'll work on it to see if I can get another one posted.

Rob