Okay, I know what you’re thinking, card tubes? The piece of rubbish that’s supposed to be thrown away after the wrapping paper or kitchen roll is used up? Really? Card tubes are actually a really useful item here at the Zoo. We can make a variety of enrichment toys with them, for free!
So, firstly, a huge thank you to everyone that has already donated items to us either through our Wishlist or by dropping donations off to the donation bin in reception. When we see card tubes have come in, the bird’s section always have plenty of ways to put them to use them.
We mostly use card tubes for our Parrots as they just love destroying things. These birds are highly intelligent. We try to make them work for some of their food every day, just like they would in the wild. This is mentally stimulating for the parrots and we’re always trying to come up with new ways to work their brains. Once one parrot has solved a puzzle for the first time, it doesn’t take long for the others to watch and learn to figure out how to do it as well. And of course, they remember what to do the next time they’re given that particular toy.
There are so many toys we can make out of card tubes. The only limiting factor is our imagination really. We will sometimes skewer them on to metal kebabs, hang them up with chain to make puzzle feeders (string can be dangerous to parrots unsupervised) and poke them through a board. Plus, hiding food inside the toys is a great way to make them work for a snack.
In my blog this week I’d like to show you how to make a variety of toys just using card tubes, and maybe a scrap of paper. If you’d like to have a go at making some toys yourself, our birds would definitely put them to good use! Kitchen roll tubes are more hygienic to use than toilet roll tubes. However, any card tube from packaging will work. You can buy parrot-safe skewers for a few pounds HERE if you wanted to be a bit more creative.
Toys with food inside are often the most successful. You can put food in them yourselves, but please only use a small pinch in each toy, about 2-3 seeds/nuts, and leave a note with your enrichment to let us know how much food you have used in total (grams). Sunflower seeds are always a hit, but they can also have pine nuts, brazil nuts, shelled walnuts, peanuts, almonds, and cashew nuts. Parrots are prone to becoming overweight, so it is important we know how much food we are giving out as any food we use in enrichment is taken out of their daily feeds. If in doubt, you don’t have to put food in them, have a go at some of the toys that don’t need closing up so we can add the food in when we give it out (the hanging cups are always a hit!).
Play boxes
One of the easiest things we can do with card tubes is stuff them tightly into a box and scatter food inside. We can then fix these to the sides of the aviary or place them on the floor of the enclosure. The goal with this enrichment is to create a little play box for the birds where they have to pull all of the items out to reach the food inside. We can even stuff colourful paper into the tubes for added difficulty and interest. Or, chewable items like wooden beads which can be found on Amazon HERE.
Foot toys
Another quick and easy thing to make with card tubes are foot toys. This basically involves blocking an end of a tube by stuffing it with something like screwed up paper. Or we can fold down the edges of the tube. We then pop a treat inside and seal up the other end. The goal with this type of toy is to make them small enough for the parrots to hold onto with their feet and chew them up at the same time. You can also stuff them with all sorts of fun things like colourful shredded paper. Plus they absolutely love Chinese finger traps like the ones you can buy off Amazon HERE.
Hanging forage cups
This is probably one of the most useful toys you can make for us at home for our parrots. They’re a bit fiddly for us to make so we need to have a few people in make these. However, they’re so quick and easy for us to give out to the birds. When we choose to do this enrichment, we usually have to make loads of them as we like to make sure each bird has a few to investigate. The goal is to encourage them to use more of the aviary, and to stretch and reach for a treat. To make them you just push in one end of the card tube, then at the opposite end cut a strip almost through to the other side. Then underneath cut another strip in the opposite direction almost through to the other side so it makes a handle for hanging.
Tube puzzle feeders
We don’t just use the card tube toys for the parrots. Our chickens, guinea fowl, pheasants, geese, ducks, swan and pigeons also enjoy working for their food. A great toy for them is to fold down either end and cut small shapes out of the middle. Once we’ve put a bit of food inside they then have to roll them to tip the food out! I would note that we only use this enrichment supervised for these birds. If it gets wet they might accidentally ingest some so we have to keep an eye. Plastic tube feeders like the ones you can buy HERE do exactly the same thing. They are reusable and we can leave the birds to play with them unsupervised as well!
Shredders
I think that other than eating, one of the parrots’ favourite things to do is shred things! They are quite destructive and like to chew EVERYTHING. We often give them browse, which are cuttings of non-toxic trees, and this keeps the birds busy for ages. But they also love shredding cardboard. We often hang a big box up for them to destroy. It can be quite difficult and time consuming to hide food in these though. A quick and easy way to create a forage toy for shredding is to pack the inside of a card tube with more cardboard with food hidden inside. You can either use more card tubes, fold them up with a treat inside and stuff them in, or roll some treats up in a bit of cardboard and wedge it inside. The latter is very time consuming for the birds as the goal with this type of enrichment is that they have to chew away each layer to the centre to score a treat.
I hope you enjoyed us sharing some of our enrichment making ideas with you on how the humble cardboard tube can be put to a good use! These are just a small selection of the things you can make. The list is exhaustive once you put your mind to it.
