Foraging Ideas?

[Birdluver]

I have just taken in an African Grey Congo who is a feather chewer. I have had him about a week now and he is on a Zupreem natural diet but the only problem is that I have a very picky eater. I tried giving seed, nuts as treats and he has no interest. I also gave fresh veggies, but only ate very few. I have read that foraging might help him, along with toys that shred, which he has already, I am also tring aloe vera juice to spray him, Palm oil, and I also ordered the aloe vera detox.

I am looking for some foraging techniques I guess that I can use for his pellets since he does not care for anything else as treats. I will have to keep trying different foods. But any foraging ideas would be great.Thank you

Carrie

[stepht25]

Get some unwaxed cups (like those little dixie bathroom cups or water cooler cups), drop some pellets or what ever in them and crush them closed - stick through cage bars, inside food cups, or onto ss skewers. Tape a piece of paper over the food dishes (poke holes in the beginning so he can see the food is there). Fresh foods are always a big hit here when they are served on ss skewers. You can also put one of the unwaxed cups on the skewer then food and another cup upside down on the skewer. Larger greens weaved through cage bars. Take a shallow dish, put toy parts or rocks (at crafts stores - I think the ones I get say cleaned river rock or something like that) put them in your dish and then let the bird see you scatter food in with them. There are plastic toy parts I use for foraging. Just let the birds see me pushing food through the holes in them - then they have to chew through the toy to get the treats. You can also get extra food dishes and put them in different places around the cage so they aren't getting all their food form 1 spot. Hope some of those ideas help!

[jriley]

One thing I discovered by accident that Molly loves: fill an empty Pringles can with treats and then stuff a wiffle ball into the opening. I have seed mix in Molly's and she can get a few goodies out by shaking the container and she also tries (without success) to pry the wiffle ball out. She's had it a month now and hasn't yet destroyed the container.

Molly also loves her bucket full of foot toys wrapped like candy and will spend long periods unwrapping them or chewing the paper off. She also has a wiffle ball with these "candies" attached with leather lacing and she loves to untie the knots and then destroy the toys.

My family had two greys when I was a teen and they were afraid of any new thing in their cages and I never saw either play with a toy, but I'm pretty sure both were wild-caught and they were never tame. Weird thing, though, neither one ever plucked, and they were on the typical all-sunflower diet. I've been kind of wanting a grey, but all my memories of those two are so negative that I don't know if I'd ever have the courage to do it. I hope yours does great with you!

Julie