Playscape Additions

Birds in the wild do not spend all day hanging out in the same tree... no matter how enriching that tree may be, so I have always thought that my own captive birds should not spend all day in or around their "tree" or in this case cage.
Now my birds all have cages that are larger than most would provide for their species, with a variety of perches, toys, foraging opportunities etc etc... but lets face it... if we had to live in our bedrooms all day, every day we would get pretty bored, no matter how nice our decorations are.

Because of this I have over the years been developing, improving and expanding what I like to call their "playscape". It started off as a single manzanita playgym and has now developed into a manzanita play gym, a HQ metal play gym, a starbird climbing net. All of these are enhanced with various toys, foraging opportunities and boings. All of which are rotated and moved regularly to present new challenges.
My birds all love this playscape and make full use of it, but I am always looking for ways to improve it.
One of the ways I have been wanting to improve it is to add something which would allow a) a place to have a bird bath, b) a flat perching surface and c) new foraging opportunities.

Last week I found just the right piece to add. While wondering around Walmart I came across a bathroom organizer (one of the shelves which go around and over a toilet) which was marked down to $10. The shelves were wire bars of about 3/4 to 1" spacing.
I brought it home and and assembled it to add into the playscape. The height was perfect and allowed for me to put my Austin Air Cleaner underneath to save some space.
The bars allowed me to add in foraging toys which were designed to be fixed onto the side of a cage. The flat shelves allowed me to add a large flat dog bowl as a bathing dish (I use a plastic one with a rubber base to prevent slipping). Finally the bars on the shelves and the struts of the main frame allow me to attach hanging foraging toys, foot toys and other fun things.

This new addition to the playscape has gone down very well with Marnie and Lucha who will spend hours moving around it and exploring. Puff is still a little nervous of it, but given time I am sure he will come around to it.

The important thing to take away from this is that you never know when you will find a chance to enrich your birds lives further. Whenever I go to a store, yard sale, farmers market, on craigslist I am always looking at things with the birds in mind, and have found a number of great deals. All my birds love their stainless steel measuring spoons that cost me $1 from Walmart. The childrens links that I buy in bags of 30 from Target for $5 have made life so much easier by using them to hang toys... this way I never have to worry about the link not fitting around the larger bars, or having to mess with tightening or loosening links when a bird is threatening to remove my hand.


The new addition to the playscape with the air filter below it. On the shelves are the bird bath, toys and of course my grey Marnie

Browse of Various Kinds

Today was a good day for my birds... or maybe that should be a good day for me being able to enrich my birds?

For some reason I have lived in the same condo complex for nearly 5 years and never registered that just over the fence by the flood pond is a lot of bamboo... and when I mean a lot I mean 20ft by 20ft of it. It's never sprayed on either side, and conveniently lower branches hang over the fence within grabbing distance. Today, when walking my Dachshund Mina, I finally noticed it!
I pulled several branches/tops down and snapped them off, returning to the house with a good handful. Now all my birds have fresh bamboo browse to destroy in their cages. Tomorrow I think I shall gather some to add to their playscape.
Bamboo is awesome stuff where birds are concerned. The thicker parts can be cut up to make foraging toys, wedged between cage bars to form perches, or can be placed between bars to be shredded. The frondier end pieces can be woven through the cage bars to provide shredding goodness for all sized birds.

After my good fortune (and guilt at not noticing it earlier) with the bamboo I set about making a batch of chop and freeze. This is a time saving mix of veggies, dried fruits, nuts, herbs, grains and legumes which is hacked, mixed and then frozen. A couple of hours of making it one day, leaves you with weeks if not months worth of quick foods for when schedules are tight. I like to break mine up with bird bread, fruits, fresh veggies and a little of whatever I am eating if bird healthy.
This most recent batch consisted of: Mustard greens, red kale, dandelion greens, yellow bell pepper, courgettes, carrots, quinoa, a bean mix, millet, dried amarillo chili peppers, dried goji berries, dried apricot, dried pineapple, dried mango, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chamomile, red leaf raspberry, hibiscus, spearmint, flax seeds, OptOmega oil and Palm Oil. All organic of course.
The thing I really love about doing it in this way is that it can be made of whatever organic produce you can get at the time; No mustard greens? Use some collard greens instead. Can't find fresh chili peppers? Use dried instead. This way not only can you support seasonal produce, but you can also provide your bird with something new every batch. Indeed, every meal they get of it will be different in it's balance of ingredients.
You can increase the enrichment factor by not making all the ingredients of uniform size. Carrots for example can be put in whole, sticks, chunks and circles. Each requiring a slightly different approach from the bird to eat.
My top reason for doing this chop? My birds on the kitchen counter "helping"! In the case of my CAG Marnie it is stealing large amounts of goodies and then getting mad when I make her give most of it back to put in the mix. Lucha the amazon will instead gently take small pieces of chopped up foods and eat it off to one side. A highly enriching past time for both!

When doing this chop mix I always put some of the ingredients to one side for separate enrichment uses. Today a couple of mustard green leaves and carrots were kept back and hung on a stainless steel skewer.