Anyone here feed solely through foraging toys?

[KatherineI]

I encountered someone last week who told me that he doesn't put bowls (except water) in his birds cages, that they are fed pellets, seeds and fresh foods alike, through foraging toys. With all the food related issues I have going on with Sugar and her clear preference to forage over eating out of a bowl, I was wondering how common, or uncommon, that is? If Sugar has a bowl of food and also has a foraging toy, she will ignore the bowl in favor of the toy.

She's lost a lot of weight and is back on handfeed until we figure out a way to not only get to her to eat, but what she likes to eat (I suspect she doesn't like the pellets I was feeding her and she's a very VERY picky eater!). I've been making my own foraging toys, but am running out of supplies to do so and am thinking of investing in reusable foraging toys (not just the kinds they shred, but the ones where they have to actually figure out how to reach what they want) to go along with the homemade ones.

What are some of your Fids favorite foraging toys?

 

[Sierra_N_Fids]

My sister does this with her Ekkie most of the time especially if he is in breeding season she has bought a lot of foragers from my safe bird store. She also uses a kabob.

 

[Ming-Ming]

I feed them most of their "good" food in foraging toys. Such as treat mixes, nuts, seed, sugary pellets, etc. They get bowls of fresh food and Harrison's pellets in their cages

 

[lotus15]

I do most, but not solely. I haven't figured out a good way to get Lola's fresh food mix (sprouts, veggies, fruits) etc. in a foraging toy that doesn't totally make a mess and ruin the toy and end up costing a lot of money.

 

[LunaHestia]

I do most, but not solely. I haven't figured out a good way to get Lola's fresh food mix (sprouts, veggies, fruits) etc. in a foraging toy that doesn't totally make a mess and ruin the toy and end up costing a lot of money.

We use the acrylic ones for that. There is a wheel, one with drawers, cubes on a spinning platform, balls, balls with kabobs. Zoey LOVES all of these but she wont put forth much effort for the shreddable boxes. We changed Zoey to all foraging toys when she started plucking and we read that in the wild birds spend more than 60% of their day foraging for food. The only thing we put in bowls is her pellets, she has a spare that in the afternoon, we will put her cooked foods in a few times a week.

 

[KatherineI]

I do most, but not solely. I haven't figured out a good way to get Lola's fresh food mix (sprouts, veggies, fruits) etc. in a foraging toy that doesn't totally make a mess and ruin the toy and end up costing a lot of money.

Yeah, that's my fear. It's not pellets or seeds or nuts, but the fresh stuff, that worries me.

We use the acrylic ones for that. There is a wheel, one with drawers, cubes on a spinning platform, balls, balls with kabobs. Zoey LOVES all of these but she wont put forth much effort for the shreddable boxes. We changed Zoey to all foraging toys when she started plucking and we read that in the wild birds spend more than 60% of their day foraging for food. The only thing we put in bowls is her pellets, she has a spare that in the afternoon, we will put her cooked foods in a few times a week.

I was looking at the drawers, cubes and wheel along with kabobs. I also read that birds spend 60% of their day foraging for food, so it actually makes sense to exchange food bowls for foraging toys.

 

[KatherineI]

It also brings up another point; Sugar is fed in her cage, while loki (GCC) is fed on his play top (Sugar's cage is a dome top). If I switched to foraging toys, I'm wondering if I could/should also switch her over to a water bottle instead of a water bowl. She gets regular showers with me, she doesn't bathe in her bowl, but she does like to occasionally dunk her food (she doesn't make soup, thank goodness!). Switching her to a bottle would also allow me more freedom with how I place her perches and toys in her cage.... so there's a thought as well.

 

[qmichelle]

Food bowls can be foraging toys, too. You can have multiple bowls in different places with small amounts of food, or cover the bowls with different things (paper, etc.) Or, wrap small amounts of food in unbleached coffee filters, etc. and put them in bowls.

 

[lotus15]

We use the acrylic ones for that. There is a wheel, one with drawers, cubes on a spinning platform, balls, balls with kabobs. Zoey LOVES all of these but she wont put forth much effort for the shreddable boxes. We changed Zoey to all foraging toys when she started plucking and we read that in the wild birds spend more than 60% of their day foraging for food. The only thing we put in bowls is her pellets, she has a spare that in the afternoon, we will put her cooked foods in a few times a week.

I'm very picky with my plastics Most of those toys... the wheel one, most of the drawer toys, the buffet balls, etc. -- those are actually not acrylic, those are polycarbonate. I'm a plastic-phobe when it comes to BPA, so I won't feed anything through polycarbonate toys.