What are some cool homemade toys for birds?

Question

and treats

and I mean ones to make, not just like cardboard paper towel rolls

Answer 1

You can go into any craft store and get some string, hemp, or rope and use that as a base for hanging toys. You can also get bells, squishy shapes, colourful beads, mirrors, candle lids, doll heads, other wood shapes like that, whiffle balls, cat balls.

I once made a scarecrow using hemp, a doll head, millet, some straw, cardboard pieces (cut up from any box as long as it's clean and has no adhesives or tape residue), and drinking straws. His hair was millet, his limbs were straws, his clothes were cardboard, and he was all held together with the hemp inside.
If you like watching your bird forage, you can use the candle lids to hide treats and then string a squishy shape or piece of cardboard/paper over top so they have to chew through it or break it get to the treat.
Beads, shiny things, and colourful things are always fun and attractive to birds. They love beaking at new things with different textures. Plastic pacifiers and little plastic teddy bears are a really cute addition, too.

With whiffle balls, you can either make that a foraging game or a picking/preening game. You can string things through the holes of the ball or hide things inside. With cat balls, I highly suggest you supervise the play of it and only allow them to play with them when you can watch. I bought some toys with cat balls on the end once, and woke up one morning to find my bird with the little bell from inside the ball stuck on her beak, so be careful! But they love chasing and throwing them since they get a musical reaction.

As someone else said, if you can get the right tools (I highly prefer craft supplies), you can make virtually any toy your imagination comes up with, but make sure it's size appropriate and brainstorm every possible way a bird could be injured by it. By doing this, you can patch up any slips that may cause disaster and significantly lessen the chances of it.

With treats, it depends on the bird to what's considered a treat. It could be fresh fruits or veggies or some bread (whole wheat is best) or pasta. If you want to get into make your own bird treats, you could make mini bird muffins or bird bread using pellets, pellet dust (which can usually be found in birds' food bowls when they grind up pellets), bits of fruits and veggies, baby food, and of course, the essentials to making bread itself.
You can Google any recipe for birds you like - http://www.netpets.com/birds/reference/kjohnson/recipes.html for example. http://www.cockatielcottage.net/biscuitsnbones/maincc.html has a nice list of the things you can make. And more - http://www.upatsix.com/faq/recipies.htm ! Also, some people make "glop" for their birds, where they make a frozen blend of healthy fruits and vegetables here - http://www.rationalparrot.com/diet.html

Good luck and have fun!

Answer 2

Untreated wood. Plain cotton rope. Unsweetened Koolaid. Some toy links. Chain (no zinc). Nuts. A drill. Then your imagination can just run wild. There are loads of sites where you can check out different ideas. Just make them size appropriate to the particular bird.

Answer 3

I have found that parrots and even smaller birds love rope! Get some rope with some wood blocks, tie some knots in the rope and put a couple pieces of wood on it andtie it to the top of the cage.......or just a simple small mirror......birds love them, too
hope this helps!
free mumia!

Answer 4

I went to a crafts store and bought plastic beads and some lanyard (aka gimp, or plastic lace) and string them up with lots of knots. My cockatiel loves biting through the lanyard and watching/listening to the beads fall on the floor.

Answer 5

This website is great! I've made tons of toys from here for my budgies and conure.

http://www.cheepparrottoysntips.com/

Answer 6

make a cardboaaard cube with a bell inside it

Answer 7

find some natural branches
ladder swing

Sliced apple i think

Answer 8

Have you tried teddybirds?