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Foraging Toys

TikiMyn

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I would get a foraging wheel. There are different kinds/brands, I have the caitec one I think but not entirely sure. This is by far the toy my macaw spends most of his time on. He can make dents however in the acryl, not sure how a goffin relates to an Illigers macaw in beak strength.
The foraging toy he loves most would be the barrel of fun, but mostly he adores the acryl and leather strip I attach to it.
This is my foraging wheel, barrel of fun next to it. He has two of those and has mostly destroyed the plastic balls they are supposed to hold on the other one.
812BD606-B9AE-4EAE-848F-D592A26B1355.jpeg

@faislaq can maybe chime in if her goffin girls are able to chew acryl?
 

Mizzely

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I use a lot of Caitec ones. My Jardine's loves the PVC one you have, but also likes the

Four Corners
Four Big Drawers
Foraging Wheel
Food Tumbler

From Caitec:


I do not recommend the Push and Pull or Windmill; I found both of these impossible to clean and fill, and the food holes are small.
 

faislaq

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@faislaq can maybe chime in if her goffin girls are able to chew acryl?
My girls are on the smaller end of the species (220 & 249g). They can crack small acrylic things such as beads and cat bell balls, but not larger things like toys.

@iamwhoiam and @sunnysmom have real goffinses. I'll bet they have some stories!
 

iamwhoiam

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I like the Goodie Gadget from Frasier toys. Unfortunately they are no longer in business but this place makes a knockoff.
This holds up well until the too smart and mechanical Goffin's takes it apart.
The toys from that company are made in China just like almost everything else except for the AA vendors original toys and products.

Keno has chewed the very thick and hard plastic gears on the "Shift Your Gears" Seriously Nutz toy. I try to stick with thick acrylic for
foraging type toys.

Bolt On - Page 2 - Bell Plastic Bird Toys The Maze
Similar to Caitec foraging wheel.

Very easy for Keno to open this one. I generally avoid toys with chains but she has had this for many, many years.
 

AShep

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Thanks all! I will source some of those out. I found a wheel on Amazon, we are in Canada so lots of those seem not available to me.
Fortunately she has not proven to be a very destructive chewer so far.
Next question, what do you put in them? Petrie has proven to be very picky. Do you do just foods or other items also?
 

Mizzely

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I put my bird's daily food in them, so mostly pellets with a bit of seed or nut, sometimes a nutriberry. Some people add freeze dried veggies but my bird won't eat them. I only leave a small amount of dry food in an actual bowl.

You can also take a cake pan or similar, scatter food on it, and then add foot toys and shredded paper to do a simple and cheap ground foraging.

You can wrap some in paper before adding to her bowl, so she has to tear into it to get to the food.

Even just dividing food up between multiple locations around the cage/play area gets them moving!
 

sunnysmom

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Not so much foraging, but my goffin loves these. I hook them on his cage bars and he loves hooking and unhooking them. You can see this one is looking worn. Lol.

20230204_120222.jpg
 

iamwhoiam

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I've put food such as pellets, pieces of Avicakes and pieces of nuts in the foragers. I've put food, beads and pieces of wood in the treasure chest.
I've made purses out of card stock using my Brother Scan and Cut and put shredded paper, beads, wood pieces and other items in those. It's just something
fun and easy for her as well as for my other birds. Sophie, my red-bellied parrot, likes to carry her purse around for a bit before tearing it to shreds.
You can probably fold up some paper/card stock to form an envelope shape and put "stuff" inside of that. Cheap foraging toy.
 

Emma&pico

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I've put food such as pellets, pieces of Avicakes and pieces of nuts in the foragers. I've put food, beads and pieces of wood in the treasure chest.
I've made purses out of card stock using my Brother Scan and Cut and put shredded paper, beads, wood pieces and other items in those. It's just something
fun and easy for her as well as for my other birds. Sophie, my red-bellied parrot, likes to carry her purse around for a bit before tearing it to shreds.
You can probably fold up some paper/card stock to form an envelope shape and put "stuff" inside of that. Cheap foraging toy.
Would love to see a picture of your purse idea sounds brilliant
 

Emma&pico

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I do loads of foraging toys but mine are for little beaks and would probably last your girl a second :rofl:
 

iamwhoiam

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Thought I had some photos of the purses but can't find any so maybe I never took any. :D I'll make a few and take a photo when I get a chance.
 

ConureDad

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I do not recommend the Push and Pull or Windmill; I found both of these impossible to clean and fill, and the food holes are small.
My conure absolutely LOVES both of these, but I definitely agree about the issues. Don't get them if you want something easy to clean and fill with whatever you want. You can get a screwdriver and unscrew the halves to open them up for cleaning, but that's a pain. I only use dry foods like pellets and some seeds in them to minimize how often they need to be cleaned.

For refilling I haven't had an issue, except that small pellets and seeds can get caught in the little square hole the top fits into on the Windmill. The food holes on the Windmill haven't given me an issue, but with the Push and Pull the food will get stuck if you don't use either very small food items or very few if them (even the roudybush mini pellets get jammed if I put many of them in the top). The Harrison's fine pellets seem to work without getting stuck, so I only use those along with a few small seeds.

On another note, you can always make foraging toys. I've made a couple foraging coconut half toys for my conure. You basically just get a coconut half with a hole in it from a bird toy parts store and some sort of cordage and string it through the coconut with a knot at the bottom to hold it. Then you can just leave it like that and add food ans stuff to forage through, or use pieces of wood or whatever else to make it harder to get to the food. You can also add whatever other stuff you want above it. This is one I made that he has to tilt to get the food out of, with some random chewable stuff added:

20230102_103249.jpg
 

PetFoster

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The Goffin's I was fostering just got adopted, but I had him for 6+ months, little stinker! He loves ripping things apart, and depending on whether he was hormonal or not, went through toys lickety split! I used the paper cartons my eggs come in as foraging items: just cut apart the little egg wells and stack! Sometimes I stacked them tightly, with just a few pieces of almond in some, and others I also included wooden beads or shredded paper in between the cups, again hiding little pieces of nuts or treats. He also loved the treat cage -- I had to get creative because a little nut will fall through the openings, but I wrapped them in natural uncoated cupcake papers and would tuck them in amongst bits of salvaged wood pieces from destroyed toys. Let me find some pictures and show!
 

PetFoster

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Here are a few toys and foraging things I made for George the Goffin's while he was with me. Left to his own devices, without toys to tear apart or investigate, he had a propensity for destruction of MY things (does anyone else with bigger birds have at least one "customized" lamp shade?), and/or outbursts of frustration and noise. In the interest of not going completely broke on a bird that was not mine, I had to be creative with what I used, because any one of these toys lasted, at the very most, 2 days. More often it was closer to 2 hours, but what are you going to do? <sigh> :)

CA3A99AF-F2FF-498D-9DE4-CD69ED22B0CC_1_105_c.jpeg 74D521A9-466D-48EC-9D1A-B0162A4E226D_1_105_c.jpeg B16C50AE-DEAA-4D41-8F5F-A12AAE2D14A0_1_105_c.jpeg 2A15C258-9607-4C26-B6E5-FB6F762F350D_1_105_c.jpeg
 

AShep

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Those are all fantastic options! Thank you all so much for sharing :) I love the diy options, I will definitely be recreating some of those.
This was recommended by another parrot owner to me and I can't wait to get one for her! She already loves to unscrew her perches from outsideo_O
Screenshot_20230215_172626_Amazon Shopping.jpg
 
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