I was doing some research lately on the importance of captive foraging and thought i would give it a go with MOlly. So today i found some bits and pieces for her foraging tray. Here is what she has in it today:

 

- Pasta

- Rice

- Pine nuts

- Plastic buttons

-Newspaper (This is because she loves to ripe certain corners to shreads and she also hides under it, something familiar to her in this new thing)

- Soup mix (peas, carrot and other grains)

- A cat toy thing with a bell in the middle

- a few sun flower seeds to make it more enticing until i get some millet spray

- a couple of small, smooth black rocks

- And a spring of oregano

With budgie seed sprinkled on top

 

Im going to try a range of different things so anyone got anymore suggestions that i can try, Im going to get some photos of it as I think it looks pritty good if I don't say so myself, i hope she decides to play in it :]

I was doing some research lately on the importance of captive foraging and thought i would give it a go with MOlly. So today i found some bits and pieces for her foraging tray. Here is what she has in it today:

 

- Pasta

- Rice

- Pine nuts

- Plastic buttons

-Newspaper (This is because she loves to ripe certain corners to shreads and she also hides under it, something familiar to her in this new thing)

- Soup mix (peas, carrot and other grains)

- A cat toy thing with a bell in the middle

- a few sun flower seeds to make it more enticing until i get some millet spray

- a couple of small, smooth black rocks

- And a spring of oregano

With budgie seed sprinkled on top

 

Im going to try a range of different things so anyone got anymore suggestions that i can try, Im going to get some photos of it as I think it looks pritty good if I don't say so myself, i hope she decides to play in it :]

 

 

sounds good

enjoy the mess

:rofl:

 

Here is the picture of my first attept, so far Molly is not interested

 

Here is the picture of my first attept, so far Molly is not interested

 

well i wouldn't want to hop in a small takeaway container with millions of un known objects

 

can i suggest you find a very shallow tray or even just use bottom of cage as i certainly would not go their if i was a budgie

also no room to play ball

 

if molly is tame maybe find a place out side cage for her foraging play

and lessen the amount of objects

 

 

mind you i never set up a foraging thing for my birds how ever they do this naturally

in their cages on flat dishes with

horse chalf and small cuts of fruit

Edited June 11, 201015 yr by birdluv

okay thanks for the advice, thats all i could find for now, i was going to use a show box lid but thought the coloured stuff on the outside would be bad and then i cant continously replace the shoe box lid. So will look for something different when i go to the shops tomorrow. Until then that will have to do. No molly isn't a tame bird, i have never been able to tame molly as she was a rescue bird from a rather bad situation. ANy other suggestions would be much appreciated.

I was doing some research lately on the importance of captive foraging and thought i would give it a go with MOlly. So today i found some bits and pieces for her foraging tray. Here is what she has in it today:

 

- Pasta

- Rice

- Pine nuts

- Plastic buttons

-Newspaper (This is because she loves to ripe certain corners to shreads and she also hides under it, something familiar to her in this new thing)

- Soup mix (peas, carrot and other grains)

- A cat toy thing with a bell in the middle

- a few sun flower seeds to make it more enticing until i get some millet spray

- a couple of small, smooth black rocks

- And a spring of oregano

With budgie seed sprinkled on top

 

Im going to try a range of different things so anyone got anymore suggestions that i can try, Im going to get some photos of it as I think it looks pritty good if I don't say so myself, i hope she decides to play in it :]

Sounds like fun if the birds get into it. I'll might do one for my guys in the avairy.

okay so i have stepped back a notch, i guess i got a bit carried away. I first need to get Molly to forage, she loves to chew a certain newspaper corner to bits so I decided to hide a couple of sunflower seeds and pine nuts under thier for her to get, but she went down this morning and noticed these strange things under the paper, she looks nervous but keeps going down to check them out (even though she has eaten these before). I also sprinkled a bit of budgie seed and pine nuts on the floor of her cage to get her to forage. I removed all the other bits and pieces and will introduce them gradually. Once she has eating from the floor of cage down pat and descovers the food under the newspaper I will then try and change that to a tray which im gonna go and look for today at the shops. Any other suggestions???

With Django we roll small buds of millet spray up in paper and give the "package" to him when he's on the landing perch outside his cage. Most fun part every morning and he seems to love the anticipation of watching us roll it! Rips it to shreds in about 10 minutes.

With Django we roll small buds of millet spray up in paper and give the "package" to him when he's on the landing perch outside his cage. Most fun part every morning and he seems to love the anticipation of watching us roll it! Rips it to shreds in about 10 minutes.

 

 

I'm going to try this with my birds...sounds like something they would enjoy.

 

One thing we do is tightly fill empty toilet paper rolls with timothy hay (as tightly packed as possible) and let them play at getting it out of there.

Well when i got home today, Molly had not only ripped her favourite newspaper corner to pieces and eaten the pine nuts i put under her special corner but had also chewed another corner and made a whole in the middle of the news paper too. Shes a fast learner, so i will do this again but change were i put the food tomorrow and see if she picks it up. I will do this for a couple of days before introducing the new tray i got her thats bigger and not so deep, I haven't added any colourful toys in yet, but i will teach her to find the food under the newspaper on the tray first before adding anything else.

Well when i got home today, Molly had not only ripped her favourite newspaper corner to pieces and eaten the pine nuts i put under her special corner but had also chewed another corner and made a whole in the middle of the news paper too. Shes a fast learner, so i will do this again but change were i put the food tomorrow and see if she picks it up. I will do this for a couple of days before introducing the new tray i got her thats bigger and not so deep, I haven't added any colourful toys in yet, but i will teach her to find the food under the newspaper on the tray first before adding anything else.

that sounds alot better mate good going

i would place some screwwed up newspapper in to her bell ball when you put it in with buts sticking out for her to drag chew what not mabe stuff it full of spinish leafs something like that

A great idea which I will also try out.

 

Can I suggest you just use the lid of the container...you can put everything on top of that, and then Molly can forage, and flick it around to her hearts content!

 

Robyn

I could use the lid but i got something even bigger for only 99c at crazy clarks

I could use the lid but i got something even bigger for only 99c at crazy clarks

stick with the bigger thing with shellow edges as she can roll ball around with out it going to far or off lid and stuck in wire on cage

UPDATE: Well Molly loves the foraging tray and after about a week and a half, she has all her bits and pieces in it for her to play with. Last week she had mostly native bits and pieces such as grasses, parsley, gum leaves, a few pony beads, a couple of rocks which was hiding millet spray, lucern pellets and her other favourite cry foods. She loved this one and eventually I started to introduce the other things i bought from the shops (buttons of different sizes and more pony beads). Today Molly got a bit of rabbit/guinea pig mixture: lucern pellets, grains and dried grasses, 1 sunflower seed to keep her really interested and some soup mix (dried peas and things) as she loves to throw this around. Over the top I but all the big and small buttons, smooth rocks, bark and twigs which you can see her playing with in the photos below. One picture is of one of last weeks tray. Sorry guys about the picture quality...

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's lovely to watch them forage isn't it! I use some square pot plant saucers as my trays and they work really well. They are very shallow and have a curved out edge which is comfortable for them to sit on. Everyday my flock gets one tray which has a variety of greens all jumbled up together and another with seed. Every few days I sprinkle some budgie treat mix or a few hulled oats over the seed for variety and they love it. Mind you they love to make a mess and sometimes throw their greens all over the place before eating them!!

This thread was encouraging to me. I've been saving small shallow trays from frozen dinner entrees and using them for my canary for water for drinking and bathing, and for his fresh food for the day.

 

Today, for the first time, I placed one of those trays in the budgie cage, with nothing but a shallow layer of seed in it, just for something different. At least 1 bird took to it right away. I'll get them used to finding seed there, then start adding fresh food (they seem unfamiliar with food other than seeds) and buttons, marbles, beads and things as have been suggested here.

 

THANKS!