by Mona » Thu Oct 01, 2009 4:53 pm
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
Mona in Seattle
Phinneous Fowl (aka Phinney) TAG
Babylon Sengal
Doug (spousal unit)
Jack and Bailey (Gremlins)
Kiri (CAG)
http://www.flyingparrotsinside.comyoutube: Avian Flyers