What do you do with rejected toys?

[dumpling98]

Hello guys! I am the owner of a female cockatiel named Candy. We've been together for 3 months. It took a while to find Candy's favorite toys and as a new bird owner I couldn't use the common sense that I have now and I am stuck with 2-3 toys that are rejected.

My cockatiel likes toys that can be shredded like paper, also soft plastic like drinking straws or q tips. I have discovered that she does not like wood or hard pastic toys. She is also not interested in cloth strings.

Do you have any ideas how can I transform them or use them for something else? I am tight on money so I would love to reuse them or make a new toy.

This is how the toys look:

Jucarie din Lemn pentru Pasari Ferplast 31cm | Animax.ro
Jucarie pentru pasari Inlele Acryl cu Clopotel /Animax.ro

 

[Imogena]

You could dismantle the wooden one and put pieces of paper or cardboard between the wooden blocks so Candy coud shread it. You could make a few toys from this one. I sometimes use also rice cakes as a shredding toys since Edgar eats cardboard so I cannot give him any. Maybe Candy would like to shread rice cakes. You could put them between wooden blocks for variety of shreading materials. Also different kind of papers for different textures.
Sometimes I also give to Edgar cakes which I bake especially for shredding. They are thin and hard, excellent for shreading. Very simple to make. You cook some veggies, blend them, add some corn flour (it should be dense enough for you to take in the hand and form a flat thin circle, shouldn't stick to your hand). Then you bake it for about 20 minutes in 200 C.
And with the plastic toy you could take long pieces of paper or see grass and tie them like ribbons to those rings for shreading. Or you could interweave straws through plastic rings.
You could also try with softer wood, maybe Candy will like it because she would see the results of shreading. I use birch slices for Edgar but he is bigger than Candy, being a TAG. But the bark on those slices is very thin and very easy to shread and he loves it. Maybe Candy will like it to.

 

[dumpling98]

thank you for the sugestions! great ideas!

 

[Revelth]

Maybe you could make a foraging box of some sort if all else fails. Taking apart the toys, and dumping them all in there with a few healthy treats. Since its a female cockatiel I guess you'd have to be careful to discourage nesting behavior, but if she doesn't like any of the ideas that Imogena presented it might make a okay backup plan.

 

[dumpling98]

I sometimes use also rice cakes

I bought rice cakes yesterday and put one in the morning on a fruit stick and omg by the time I returned home she totally shredded it all. She loves it! thank you.

 

[Imogena]

You are very welcome. Glad I could help.

 

[dumpling98]

After 2 months of sitting in the cage forgotten, the wooden toy suddenly become interesting and now she plays with it. wtf Candy. make up your mind I was ready to take it apart lol

 

[Fergus Mom]

After 2 months of sitting in the cage forgotten, the wooden toy suddenly become interesting and now she plays with it. wtf Candy. make up your mind I was ready to take it apart lol

Mine go through spurts, where they don't play with their favorite toys at all, and then a week later - WOW!
They are sometimes SO fickle! This is very true with the wooden ones as well... they had (yep, HAD) a wooden ladder which had bendable joints in sections, and they finally chewed 2 of the joints so badly that it came apart... good job Fergus and Fiona!