Can I train my bird not to eat her new play stand?

[k9shrink]

Hi all,

A few days ago, I built a big new playstand for our African Grey, Clover. We live in Turkey, so there's not a big selection of building materials. I used PVC for the stand, and wrapped all pieces in hemp twine for good footing. It took me between 10-15 hours just to wrap the twine. I wrapped it over double-sided tape and hid + glued both ends of the twine.

Once completed, I hung a bunch of nice toys, including wooden ones, shredders, and foraging toys. Here it is:



After finishing it, it occurred to me that Clover is a huge rope chewer. She has the biggest Get-a-Grip net for summer aviary use, and has chewed through almost all of it. I've replaced so much of it that it's more "patches" than Get-a-Grip.

Sure enough, she has already managed to pull up the twine on her playstand at various places and chew through it. Each night for the past three nights, I've been coating the twine with glue, re-wrapping the hemp, and slathering with more glue so she can't find the ends again.

I work at home just feet from her stand, so I'm now thinking I might need to train her to not chew the perches. Has anybody done this successfully? My idea was to give her a verbal warning when I see her going for the hemp twine. If she continues, she goes back in her cage for a time out.

Another thing I thought of was to lace the stand with "dummy" twine strapped between the different perches. She might spend time chewing these and give up chewing the perches. On the other hand, this might just whet her appetite for hemp, and she'll go chew the perches too... probably when I'm out of the room.

If anybody has successfully dealt with this issue, please let me know!

Thanks,

Sharon in Istanbul
Clover the CAG
(flighted but too lazy to fly)

[patdbunny]

Wow. Sounds like an exercise in futility. How about roughening up the PVC for footing so you don't have to have it wrapped at all? Or screwing in natural branches onto the PVC for footing?

I've tried for the last 20 years to teach certain birds to not destroy certain things. It just ends up frustrating me and lessens my enjoyment of my birds. For me it's just easier to find a different solution that works with the bird's natural inclinations.

If you're really bent on teaching the bird not to chew, maybe some of the yucky tasting stuff like "bitter apple" sprayed on the perches. I don't know if you can get something like that in Turkey. I've also heard some birds don't mind the taste.

[captwest]

Good luck , if mine thought there was something they weren't to chew on ,it would be the first thing they went after.

[patdbunny]

Yeah! I know, right!

Seems they know what you really, really don't want them chewing on and they go straight for it.

They're smart enough to learn; they're also smart enough not to really care what we humans think.

[born2fly]

I doubt you will be successful at stoping it. I've seen people use vet wrap on perches for grip. At least it would save you time on wrapping and you won't have to use potentially harmful glue.

PS
Love your cat just lazily looking through the window

[patdbunny]

Hey K9, did we completely bum you out with our pessimism?

[Dave]

ha ha ha just the honest voices of experience. Heck, if I could train mine ONLY to eat their play stuff, I would be a happy man!

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I agree with patdbunny here. Chewing is a natural behavior and there's not really a good way to explain that "this rope you chew on, this rope you don't". I'd also worry a bit about ingestion of too much glue. So IMO taking off the rope and sanding the PVC or wrapping it with vetwrap instead is a better solution than trying to train the bird not to chew on the rope. YMMV.

[patdbunny]

Dave - get a new laptop yet? Are you like independently wealthy or something? Pricey bird toys. Then again my old M2 ate my friend's exercise bike and I had to buy my friend a new one. I also had to replace the drywall in the livingroom of a house I rented due to a parrot-created hole. My current little parrotlet put a dime-size hole in my bedroom wood wall paneling within five minutes, despite her access to about 20 different toys that were closer. Ducky the sun conure just discovered it's fun to eat the faux leather seats in the truck.

Shoot, I'll take a cat any day. They just scratch up the couch.

This sounds like a fun subject. I think I'm going to go start a new thread on destruction.

[kaylayuh]

I doubt you're going to stop her from chewing. If there's something to chew, they'll chew it, whether you try to stop the behavior or not.

My budgies gnaw at the base of their playstand every time they see it. They even gnaw on the bottom through the top of their cage. I've tried stuffing the bottom with newspaper and unused coffee filters for them to shred. I've given them more rope toys. Sometimes, they just want to gnaw on the wood.