Bird Toys You Can Make at Home

In this guide

Parrots in the wild spend hours a day foraging, shredding, and chewing. Store bought toys, especially imported ones, can be expensive in India, but many of the best enrichment toys cost nothing at all and can be made from things already lying around most Indian kitchens.

Why homemade toys work so well

A bored bird is far more likely to develop problem behaviours such as screaming, feather plucking, or biting, so keeping toys varied and rotating them regularly matters as much as having toys at all. Homemade options let you refresh your bird's environment constantly without spending a rupee more than you already do on groceries.

Everyday materials worth keeping aside

• Empty cardboard tubes from kitchen rolls or toilet rolls.
• Plain, unprinted paper or brown packing paper, since coloured or heavily printed newsprint carries ink that is best avoided.
• Coconut shells, cleaned and dried.
• Natural jute twine or coir rope, both widely and cheaply available in India.
• Bamboo skewers, with the sharp tip snipped off.
• Steel bottle caps and large wooden beads.
• Loofah, either the fibrous gourd itself or store bought natural loofah pieces, which birds love to shred and chew.

Five simple toys to try

• Cardboard tube forager: stuff a kitchen roll tube with shredded plain paper and a few millet sprays or nuts, then fold both ends closed. Your bird has to tear through the cardboard to reach the reward inside.
• Coconut shell puzzle: drill a few holes into a clean, dried half coconut shell, tuck in some seeds or dried fruit, and hang it securely in the cage for a natural chew and forage toy.
• Paper parcel surprise: wrap a treat loosely in plain paper, tie it with jute string, and hang it at bird height. Unwrapping it becomes the whole activity.
• Skewer fruit kabob: thread pieces of fresh fruit or vegetable onto a bamboo skewer with the point removed, and clip it inside the cage as an edible toy.
• Bottle cap chime: string a few clean steel bottle caps and large wooden beads onto a length of leather cord for a toy that rattles and chimes when nudged.

Safety rules that matter more than the craft itself

• Avoid anything with small parts that could be swallowed whole, such as loose buttons, beads under a certain size, or plastic fragments.
• Skip synthetic threads, ribbon, or wool, since loose fraying fibres can wrap tightly around a toe or a beak.
• Never use painted, varnished, or chemically treated wood.
• Rinse and dry natural materials like coconut shell and loofah thoroughly before use, and avoid anything picked up outdoors that may carry pesticide residue.
• Introduce a new toy while supervising the first session, and swap toys out every week or two to keep things genuinely novel for your bird.

Checking toys regularly, especially in the monsoon

Natural materials such as coconut shell, loofah, and untreated wood are wonderful for enrichment, but India's humid monsoon months make them prone to damp and mould far faster than they would deteriorate in a drier climate. Check homemade toys every few days during humid weather, and remove anything that smells musty, feels damp at the core, or shows dark spotting. Also check regularly for fraying rope, splintered wood, or cracked shell edges, all of which can become sharp or catch a toe, and discard rather than repair anything that shows these signs.

Article content © Ravi Teja. All rights reserved.