how to get them to play on there cage

[nsteele]

Hello, I have adopted an African Grey hes/she is 7 years old Timneh. I have the history on his past since rocko was a baby he was kept in a cage with very little toys. rocko has always plucked since he was young. I rescued rocko when they where renovating the house and the cage was covered in drywall dust and other harmful stuff. I have had him checked out at the animal hospital and seems to be in good health.

Problem we are having is rocko doesn't play on his/her cage at all. We give rocko tons and tons of attention. Jenn and me give the bird about 8 hrs handling time a day for the past 2 months. Only thing rocko likes to do is chew towels and be pet.

rocko will only chew towels if your sitting with him. I tried hanging pieces of towel around rocko cage. rocko won't touch them.. tried a few new toys simple easy chewable toys rocko will chew them if you hold them sitting with him/her, but ignores them on his/her cage.

rocko loves to eat I bought a forging for rocko he will eat the food from the forging toy then do nothing or pluck.

I tried stuffing crackers in paper towel and sticking them in the plastic chain links of rocko's chain toy but won't go near it.. I tried exposing the cracker and giving rocko little bits from it to show what it is still won't touch it.

So all he dose is sit on his cage and the middle doing nothing or plucking for the little amount of time we don't spend with rocko.

I was thinking of building a tree and hanging toys from the ceiling


Any of you have an idea on what I could try??

added picture of rocko

[erin1990]

Have you tried any bells? My boyfriend's Timneh, Val, loves any toy that makes noise. For her, the louder the better.

[Greycloud]

First of all, congrats on your new TAG. I do not recommend giving him towels to play with. If he does take an interest he can pull little strings off and strangle or get caught in it. I rehomed a 12 yr old CAG that I have had for 5 yrs. When he came to me he did not know how to play with toys and never came out of his cage. It took a good two years for me to finally find interesting toys he liked and for him to venture out of his cage. I started leaving his cage door open and gradually he started just sitting in the doorway then up to the top of the door and now he is all over the cage. If Rocko likes soft things try finding soft leather string toys. Dexter liked those right away and he enjoys his bell. He also loves foot toys. Try wrapping up nutriberries and nuts in coffe filters and put them on the cage bottom and through the bars. Crackers have to much sodium for them. Patience is the key.

[jdlilfan]

My grey had no clue what to do with a toy when we first took her in. So I tried to get curiosity to win her over by playing keep-away. I'd play with a toy, rub it on my face, laugh and giggle, and act like I'm having fun. She'd usually watch and get curious and want to join in. She'd start to play with it or touch it, then when she'd touch the toy, I'd repeat the whole giggle and act like I'm having fun with it game and eventually she'd get curious enough to play with the toy on her own. Now she doesn't have much trouble with toys, however it usually takes a week or two before she'll touch a new toy I buy her, but she eventually gets around to it.

[nsteele]

Thanks for the advice all.. I will take the pieces of towel off rocko's cage. I also started making him a tree that will be located in the living room.. used cottonwood, stripped the bark waiting for it to dry then i will sand.. I think he would enjoy that.

[parrotforlife]

Not all parrots like toys and that ok. I use to have a gray named jojo who never liked toys.
If he does not like toys it no big deal but as for his cage, will look at his history before he came to you.
cage-bad experiense-result is bad- this what your parrot thinking. cage was a bad experiense for him. you adopted/resuced a abused parrot so their going to be baggage
if he wont play with towls in cage but will out then just dont play with towel outside the cage but( you) play with the towel with him while he is in the cage. make the cage a pleasent experiense. teach him the cage which he may of felt was bad to be actually good
play, handle and pet him while he in cage
i bought a horse once who was halter broke got sunburn it got infected and owner put halter on him anyway
when he came to me he would fight u putting halter on him i simply made the halter a pleasant experiense for him by feeding him a treat as i put it on and reward every successful putting on his halter and within a few weeks he actually could not wait for the halter
same principle here:make his cage a good experiense for him
ty for rescueing this bird im sure he would of died there if u hadnot done so