How do your finches play?

[Albinosilver]

My little green singer male loves to climb! I've seen him climb up the side of his cage, even using his beak to hang on to the bars like a hookbill. He can even fly straight up, do a flip midway in the air and cling onto the top of the cage. It's cool to watch!

Also, whenever I give him millet, he always likes to hang onto it, (like the millet is dangling from the top of the cage and he's hanging on it sideways x3)

Anyways, this little finch loves to climb, hang upside down and shred up his toys, he's just like a little parrot!

[finchmix22]

My GS males do the same thing. Today, they were flying back and forth across the cage length and then hanging from the bars on the top of the cage and having a singing competition across the room. Their cages are about 6 feet apart on each side of the room. The juvie GS chicks got into the songfest too! LOL. I love watching my GS play and sing.

[can]

My little girl GS also likes to hang upside down from the top of her cage, but when she lets go she does a back flip onto a branch! My two male GS will hang on the sides of their cages, and if they have to, hang upside down (to eat greens, etc.), but only my little girl does it for fun!

[apachetear]

My Bengalese female loves to climb bars, she'd do it all day if she could!
My zebbies favourite game is pulling anything and everything, dragging millet sprays around the cage ringing bells and trying to pull them about! Ive found the best thing to keep them busy at the minute, one of those curyl plasticy thing you put on presents ( i honestly cant think of the right word for it right now!). But i tie it to the cage and its a great game for them to just pull it and try and take it to the top!
I love watching them have fun!

[annague]

Great question and posts:

All mine are different:

I have one canary that "play-fights" with his hanging mirror, beating it with his wings and feet while scolding it ferociously. When I had him in a mixed aviary he would also (very slyly) wait for another finch to go to sleep and then skooch over on the branch and pull their feathers.

My Parrot Finches love to play with pieces of grass
and when they're young they'll sometimes 'tug of war' with a stalk of grass.

Most of my finches appear to play by just flying for fun -- whipping around their cages for no reason every once in a while. And, most of them like mirrors.

[WhiteMagicWoman]

Mine like to play tug of war with these "Shredders" that I get from the store. I unravel them a few inches and they love to try to pull them off. Here are some pics.

This is the cage with all the shredders and toys.



Birdie takes one and tries to bring in on their home shelf:



White birdie doesn't like that, so he always goes over and tries to take it back down:



This is when tug of war between two birdies can get quite comical.

They also like to sit in the rigs and tug on the other pieces of rope:



Then, they have two swings in front of their home shelf.



I try to give them lots of stuff to do. There are rarely any fights, and I have 10 Zebras in there - 5 pairs.

[6finchfriends]

What a great idea Susan! I never thought of taking the shredders and giving them to the finches! I'm sure they are instinct driven to make nests so that would keep them busy! You are so smart! Mine love tugging on things too and flying around doing all kinds of aerial acrobatics. I always hang their millet so they have to hang on to it like in the wild.