Uninterested in climbing trees or toys since flighted

[Michael]

Here's another issue I've been having. Kili has been so excited about using her wings to go where she wants that she is no longer interested in playing with toys while she is out. She used to spend hours on her climbing tree chewing toys I'd hang on there for her. Now when i put her on the climbing tree, she flies off almost instantly. She never flies to it either, she always looks for the higher perches and stands to go to. She likes her training stands and best off her cage. That's one of the highest perches around anyway. In general I like having her cage out of sight, but it makes her difficult to supervise when she is out but on her cage rather than by me.

When she was clipped she would mainly stay on her tree or surrounding floor. Now she obsess with coming to me or going to cage. I can't seem to keep her out but in close sight to watch her while I do my own thing on the computer.

[Mona]

Hi Michael:

Well, the flight thing is still new to her.

What I do with Babylon, is have tons of things that she cannot resist around for her to play with. She likes chewing small leather toys and she loves to burrow into towels right now. The bird room has stairs that go up to our guest rooms. Babylon and Jack keep wanting to fly up to the guest rooms and I don't want them up there for a couple of reasons: 1) I don't want them chewing up the wood mouldings and 2) I don't want them setting up a nest. I think they are more likely to do that if they are high and out of sight from activity.

I don't have a door so I put up a shower curtain. Right now, this is absolutely the most favorite toy for all three Senegals. Bailey flies up on to the curtain, hangs and literally talks to it. He is not particularly talkative but for some reason, he is really chatty around that curtain. Jack and Babylon also hang on that shower curtain, clicking, crawling and chewing.....so, a hanging towel or curtain can often be quite effective on a play gym.

A few months ago, Babylon's favorite thing to destroy was the wall calendar. She completely chewed one up until there is nothing left but shreds. A good friend gave me a new wall calendar and she's in the process of chewing that up. Most of my birds love to chew up cardboard and paper.

I wrote to you earlier, but when Babylon was Kili's age she was pretty obsessed with the elastic on underwear. I ended up giving her underwear, hanging it on the bird gym. It really looked terrible - like I was a real slob but it would fascinate Babylon for hours so it was worth it. I just had to remember to remove it when we had visitors.

So...I think the answer is to figure out what Kili can't resist and put that up on the play gym. Senegals are extremely focused and once they find something to borrow or chew, they treat it like a job, which can be really nice if you want them out of your hair....

Jack is extremely good about chewing up small pieces of wood. He goes through bird toys in two or three days. He's a boy though and I think they like the wood more. I noticed that Babylon seems to prefer leather straps, towels and elastic.

Another idea might be to get those really soft guinea pig toys that you see in pet stores. I think they are made from cholla. They are very soft inside and sometimes that can be a very attractive chew....

I'll think about some more ideas.....

Good luck!

Thanks

Mona

[Michael]

Surprisingly Kili loves to chew wood. She chews the bark off any new perch I put in her cage in the first few days she has it then sits on a bare perch the next few months! But right now, she doesn't seem so interested with bird toys as she is with things like couch! and cage top.

I took her out now for freeflight and can't keep her off of me for long. I put better toys out on her climbing tree which have kind of a bit of everything on them: leather, wood, balls, bells. chewy strips. Actually I made them myself and Kili used to spend an hours playing with them which is why I took them away and tried to get her involved in other toys. But now she won't stay a whole minute on her tree!