Lazy forager?

[Kenzie]

I've got the ever-so-simple foraging ball & then the foraging wheel for my Amazon, Pi.

I have seen her figure out the wheel before... when I first got it & put food in it, I definitely heard and saw her use it and get treats out of it.

Now, I have started putting her morning Nutriberries and Bird Munchy Bread that she is used to in the ball & wheel (with some Papaya). Every morning it remains untouched. I take it out and open it, show it to her every morning. She won't touch them. She screams at me because she's not getting her morning Nutriberries.. only her pellet!

I want to get a skewer soon, too, for her veggies... BUT FIRST shes gotta figure this out!!! and stop being a lazy.

Any way I can get her to actually forage? I haven't been budging on letting her have the food for free... however yesterday my boyfriend fed my birds and I forgot to let him know... so he gave her a free day and I'm mad and now shes mad at ME even more today because she got it yesterday for free!

 

[Mizzely]

Some birds really are just lazy foragers. The reward is not worth the effort. You can play into a lazy forager and still make them work for it a bit by dividing up their food among many bowls or spots around the cage/play area. You can also vary the type of forager used; there are many of them out there and while some love the wheel, others really don't! Ripley enjoys foraging too but he will use the wheel last out of all the ones I have out. He will use a lot of different ones though! Here are some of the ones we've used: Foraging Toy Reviews

I usually have 3 foraging toys in play at one time, but for the most part, I tuck nuts and nutriberries into toys around the cage and playstands and he will spend a good 2 hours finding them all!

 

[SherLar]

I am a lazy forager myself!

Our parrots (B&G G2) are lousy foragers. The G2 will tear something apart, but has no desire to actually eat the food, in fact it seems if there is food in it, he is less interested in the toy. Our B&G is a bit lazy at it as well. SO, we call breaking open a shell for the nut, a bit of foraging. She has learned to shred paper and cardboard in the last few months, so we took a toiler paper roll, with her watching, folded over one end, placed a nut-that she would have to shell- inside. She said that was fine, so then we started to fold over the top as well. We will place a nut with the shell inside a piece of paper scrunched up. We bought a steal cage like thing and I put many nuts inside scrunched paper inside of that, and she will do that only because she likes to shred paper. But ours truly are lazy.

We tried the wheel. They refused it. If they had to get their food from it, they would prefer to break it so it could never be used, than to do it again. We tried the wood peg thing. Completely ignored. When I have tried making it slightly more complex than putting nuts in paper or toilet paper rolls, it is completely rejected. In the wild, our parrots would be the first carrion that the others would be chewing on.

So try the super cheap stuff until you are positive the expensive stuff will work. Unless you have too much money of course. Food with a piece of paper over the top or a piece of cloth. It can be super easy and not appear to be foraging, Like Shawna said.

If you make your amazon come take food from your hand, can that be called foraging?!

sherri

 

[Leih]

My birds are lazy too! I have done egg crates with shredded paper and surprises inside, I've tried nutriberries wrapped in a napkin, and most successful has been an additional food bowl with assorted beads and etc that I sprinkle some food into, or hide millet pieces. I also have that Parrot Wizard foraging box but they're all lazy! I think I'll try adding more bowls and spreading food around. Sometimes it feels so difficult to keep ahead of them and find something new and exciting.