What is Safe Wood for Perches and Toys for Budgies? In this article, we discuss how can You get budgie’s life entertaining and get a healthy environment.
When you have a budgie as a pet, the question you ask yourself over and over again is surely how to provide these small, lively, feathered pets with conditions similar to those in nature, so that your pets can live longer and more beautifully. One of the prerequisites for a beautiful and comfortable life is certainly the environment in which budgies live.
We mean the selection of cages, food, toys, and other necessities that are necessary for your budgie, but also for you to enjoy every look with your pet because by beautifying its space, you certainly beautify the ambiance of the home in which you live.
Why are toys important for parrots?
When we talk about toys and budgies, we can freely compare these little pets with us humans. Budgies, as well as humans, want an environment in which they will have the freedom to move, enjoy and certainly have some toys and activities to expel negative energy from the body.
Budgies, even more than humans, love endless expanses, long walks, exploration. Because budgies, like humans, love when their time is fulfilled.
Now, if we put them in a small cage, and we can’t afford some toys, as we would imitate their natural environment, it’s like putting a man in a prison cell, just with a bed. Therefore, if you do not want your bird to go crazy with boredom, do not afford a small cage, with one or two toys, or with toys that are not adequate.
And below we offer you some suggestions to make the life of your budgies more beautiful.
What can serve as a toy for budgies? What is safe Wood for Budgies?
There is a lot that can serve a parrot as a toy, starting with the fact that there are a really large number of toys on the market. We are thinking primarily of swings, ladders, bells, and various other creations, so there is no reason not to offer your budgie a multitude of toys to choose from. They certainly have to take into account the fact that they can destroy some toys, we especially mean wooden toys, because they have a strong beak that they like to use.
When we talk about bars, which your pets love very much, they should be made of natural branches or at least wooden. Plastic should be avoided. It is ideal that they are of different thicknesses and that they are not only placed horizontally, but also occasionally obliquely, which is a greater challenge for the budgie, and it also imitates the natural environment, in which not everything is vertical and horizontal. Budgies generally like swings, but sometimes only those with a thicker wooden seating bar, because not all budgies are the same as humans and do not have the same taste. What one budgie likes may not be to the liking of another.
It is also important that the toys are easily accessible, and you can use bells, papers and cardboard, wooden balls, twigs, and many other items in your environment to entertain your feathered beast. If your budgie does not react immediately to toys, it is neither the first nor the last to behave in this way, because many budgies need some time to dare to try toys and accept them for everyday fun.
Avoid Sandpaper perches from the Pet Stores
It should be emphasized that you avoid bar wraps, which are available for purchase in zoo centers, which look like sandpaper and can very easily injure your pet’s legs and have absolutely no benefit. Budgie nails are best worn on natural bars, of various thicknesses. You can use the branches of hard and soft trees for the bars and toys of your pets in general.
Safe wood for Budgies includes birch, beech, oak, hazelnut, ash, maple, elm, and softwoods which include willow, chestnut, apple, linden, and other fruits such as figs, olives, and magnolias. And what is crucial to know is that you need to take the trees as far away from busy places as possible, as they can be contaminated with various exhaust fumes.
For parts of the cage that should last longer, use hardwoods, and for branches that you will change at least once a year, which is also recommended by experts, choose softwoods.
We repeat, make sure to pick them as far away from busy places as possible, that they are not sprayed and treated with chemicals, and wash them well and rub them under hot water.
And if you are not sure whether you have killed all the pests, you can bake the branches that can fit in the oven for 10 to 20 minutes at 100 ° C, preferably in a hot air oven, so that the trees do not burn.
Which trees you can use?
A small budgie will need smaller, softer types of wood to acquire the physical and emotional benefits of wooden bird toys. Likewise, large budgies with more powerful jaws will use larger individual pieces of safe wood that are thicker and immediately more challenging to them, as they can play with the same for long.
It is important to emphasize here, and what we did not mention at the beginning, that budgies must have a suitable cage. If you do not have the opportunity to provide your bird with adequate living space, then it may be better to wait until the right conditions are met. Because you can’t use the same cage for a big and a small budgie, it’s like putting a ten-year-old in a baby crib. It doesn’t work that way, does it?
Therefore, when thinking about taking these small, singing Budgie birds for pets, you must provide them with adequate living space. If you do not understand the topic, ask experts, read the literature, which is also available in libraries, and not only on the Internet.
Namely, all budgies in the wild spend a lot of time looking for food, even most of the time they are awake they spend looking for food and water. The rest of the time, they groom their feathers, rest, socialize with each other, that is, clean, and in the mating season, look for holes, to start a family, and raise young.
In-home spaces, in cages, budgies have a defined, often cramped living space, food is usually served in the same place, the vast majority have a toy that they more or less like, and most of the time they spend in boredom. And that is by no means desirable for their mental and physical development.
There are many cases in practice when budgie owners offer their pet a toy, she refuses it and they give up further attempts, thinking that their budgie does not like toys or games. That is by no means true. It takes time and patience to find an adequate toy that your budgie will love. Some owners also try for a long time to interest their small, feathered pet in toys and play, but to no avail.
It is necessary to get to know your bird
Here we need to understand that our idea of a suitable toy is different from our budgie and most of them will sooner or later accept the toys. It is necessary to get to know your bird, its behavior when you offer it a certain toy, but you need to be prepared for many attempts, often unsuccessful, to find the right toy. You have to find out for yourself what your pet likes and what he would do everything for, and which toys leave him completely indifferent and which can stand in a cage for months, and the bird will not even look at them properly.
So what’s the difference? The difference is of course the same as in humans, in the sexes, in the budgie itself and its personality. Because budgies, like humans, have different tastes, habits, and interests. It can often be up to the mood because even these little birds have feelings.
Thus e.g. depending on the environment and the area in which their species is widespread in the wild, and the different fruits that predominate in their diet, they prefer red, orange, or yellow toys. These can be wooden cubes or any other toy. Some research has shown that female Amazons prefer thicker and longer pieces of play rope even 20 cm long, while males prefer thinner and shorter pieces.
Research has also shown that larger budgies that feed on larger-grain pellets will spend much more time feeding than if you give them smaller grains. Thus, the researchers concluded that this is probably because they receive such grains in their legs, so in addition to feeding and playing with them, they turn them, explore them, nibble a little and manipulate them in various other ways.
So, if your budgie has not shown any interest in the toys you offer her so far, try to invest effort and time in researching exactly what she likes and which toys she reacts positively to.
Many smaller species of budgies prefer twigs, pieces of paper, pieces of cardboard than toys that lure with their colorfulness in pet equipment stores.
What kind of materials should you use?
It is most ideal to combine different materials, such as cardboard, paper, soft and safe wood (Hardwood), fresh twigs, grass that should of course be untreated, leather, cotton twine, etc. When we talk about colors, it should be noted that if you make toys for your pets, you should paint them with food color. Then explore and observe what the bird likes the most and next time offer the toy with the material and color that went the best.
Also, since some budgies like changes, they would like for you to put their toys in different places, and some prefer that their toys are always in a certain part of the cage and the same place. You have to see for yourself what your budgie likes and what it likes the most.
Since we mentioned that budgies spend most of their time during the day looking for food, then it makes sense that hiding food in toys and a cage is a very good pastime and a way for budgies to spend time during the day. But in essence, any form of entertainment is welcome, for budgies to harness their brain cells and their intelligence.
Because, in case you didn’t know, some budgies can scream, pluck feathers, bite and otherwise behave undesirably out of boredom. So do not regret the effort invested in entertaining a budgie, because in addition to your pleasure when you guess what your feathered pet likes, you will be rewarded with a much happier and more satisfied parrot.
What types of toys can you use?
There is a lot that once a budgie can serve as a toy. By this, we certainly mean the many pet stores where you can find countless toys, from swings, ladders, to many plastic toys. Also, you have to take into account that your budgies, as well as small children, can destroy some of the toys, especially wooden toys that are dear to them for destruction. But when we think about it, it is better to destroy wooden toys than your wooden furniture, which we all have in our households.
However, if you do not want to buy toys, which can sometimes be expensive, but on the other hand inefficient, you can also make toys for your budgie.
You can start from the simplest example. So take a piece of clean, white paper and tuck it between the bars of the cage. Then it’s only a matter of time before your curious pet will test its beak on that newly formed wall. As soon as he discovers that the wall is harmless, his joy will have no end.
You can also get wood balls of various sizes, which you can paint with edible colors, you can also use wooden tiles, twigs of fruit trees, hazelnuts, willows, birches, and other trees.
Make Your own Interesting Budgie Toys from Safe Wood
So, from all of the above, you can make various toys yourself. So, it is not necessary to give money for expensive toys, when your pet will be overjoyed with those toys that you found in nature and that imitate their natural environment. So you can let your imagination run wild, and the more toys there are, the budgie will be happier and more satisfied, and then so will you.
Also, as we have already mentioned, toys help budgies to behave properly and not to make a hell out of your life by yelling at you for dissatisfaction. When we talk about toys that you find in nature and what is safe wood for Budgies, we remind you again that trees should not be sprayed with any chemicals, and that you should not take trees and other toys that you find along the roads, because you can endanger the health of your bird.
Another important tip that may come in handy is to slowly get your pet used to the toys. For example, when we talk about large toys, they should be presented gradually, in the first day they can be placed somewhere in the field of view of the bird, then near the cage, and then the third or fourth in the cage. This reduces the possibility of the bird rejecting the toy, and we know that budgies are very sensitive birds.
In the end, you must educate yourself about all segments of the life of these extremely grateful birds, because if your bird is satisfied, we are sure that you will be satisfied as well. In the end, all you have to do is enjoy the view of your pet and his home, as well as his song and story, which proves to you that he enjoys life and is happy.
Know you know what is Safe wood for your Budgie, what are you waiting for? Get your safe wood for Budgies!
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