Im sure you can relate. I needed a little quiet. Just a few minutes, long enough to make a few phone calls and regain some sanity. My house is often loud. Between the toddler, teenager, three dogs, and the flock of parrots that live here, someone is usually making noise. And lots of it.
However, I have a few secrets up my sleeve for when I need a couple golden moments of silence. For the children it often involves bribery : TV or a snack (ok so maybe even both!) The dogs will literally get thrown a bone. And for the birds I bring out the stainless steel skewers. Kept away until its time to use these awesome, inexpensive, reusable items; and washed and put away after each use, the birds can’t destroy them, and they never seem to get bored of them. They are the most versatile little things, you can easily put a variety of recyclable (cardboard box pieces, zip ties, small paper dixie cups, small plastic bottles, unbleached coffee filters and paper cupcake wrappers are a few of my flocks favorites ) and other random (safe) household things that you already have laying around on them to make a shredder toy or add some treats to make it a foraging activity as well. Our birds also enjoy the use fresh fruits and vegetables to make it a natural foraging enrichment activity as well.
Here’s a few pictures and videos of our skewers in action:
Here’s a few things I had on hand to make the “thirty second DIY toys” seen in the videos above. Bandit the happy hyacinth macaw really enjoyed destroying his like, well a bandit 😉 and little miss Embers the hybrid macaw was much more dainty going about her destruction. Lol.
Want to try yours hand at it? It’s so easy! And it’s pretty fun to make them 😉 though, if your like me, you just might get caught up in watching your birds reaction and miss your moments of quiet. Though you won’t even notice it, because your feeling quite fulfilled and satisfied. And so is your bird(s). Notice how quietly they are preening now 😉
(BONUS: the stainless steel skewers are actually pretty CHEAP,you can buy them online ranging in price from only $3-$15!)
A few other parrot approved skewer ideas:
All the Squawk 