Every once in a while, I give homemade “toys” to the birds as enrichment. They might decide to play with the object, manipulate it in some way, or ignore it. Each bird has unique preferences. Aldo only interacts with his enrichment if it is tied to his favorite perch, and even then he might ignore it for a few days. Carson is easier to please: she’ll shred anything anywhere in her mew.
This time the birds received egg cartons of varying sizes stuffed with newspaper strips. As expected, Carson hopped down to grab the carton right away, but surprisingly dropped it and ignored it for the rest of the day. Even though she didn’t use the toy very much, I still consider it a successful enrichment because it was something out of the ordinary that occupied her mind – and her talons – for a little while.
Aldo, however, jumped right in and his newspaper was destroyed in a matter of minutes. Theo the nocturnal owl is rather reluctant to move about during the day so he saved his toy for later. The next morning, it was shredded and scattered around the mew. Their reactions are equally enriching for me as I try to figure out new ways to keep them active and engaged.
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