Toys for Parrots

All Amazon parrots need lots of toys to occupy themselves and stimulate their minds. Zachary loves hand held toys, hanging wood toys, bells, ropes, swings, rawhide toys, baby toys & most anything that can be made into a toy. Wood toys are very important for parrots as they love to chew. They need many different hanging wood toys,

Untreated leather and rawhide are also great chewtoys for parrots. Baby rattles made of very hard plastic are great toys for them, but make sure that you supervise them when they play (see notes at the bottom of page).

Zachary loves baby toys that make noises; like soft-toy rattles, pianos & radios with colored buttons, and others that allows him to create noise and music:

Parrots need many types of stimulating toys; in varying quantities, shapes, sizes and colors. Varied toys are not an option, but rather a necessity for parrots in a household situation. It keeps them happy, amused, mentally stimulated and trouble-free.

Before bringing a parrot home, it's cage should already have several toys, with more as back-up set aside. You will need to rotate their toys around about once every other week to keep them stimulated, which means that buying parrots toys is an ongoing purchase for parrot owners. Amazon parrot toys range anywhere from $8 - $30 per toy. You can also make your own toys if you have the time and creativity.

Besides toys in their primary cage, you will need toys in their playpens and outdoor cages. You will also need hand held toys in a basket or designated areas, that will amuse them while they are sitting around you. If you don't have these, parrots will find things to make a toy - chewing on furniture, your jewelry, window blinds, etc.. In those cases, people often try to stop the parrot from destroying their belongings, when actually the parrot is only entertaining itself. You have just unintentionally encouraged a bad behavior. Giving them what they need to amuse themselves will avoid that scenario.

As long as Zachary has fun, colorful, exciting toys, he keeps himself busy, happy and entertained. Well.. until he's ready for some love and head scratches:

If you have lots of baby toys leftover from your kids, you can teach your parrot to use the interactive type baby toys - with supervision at all times of course:

Baby Pianos, Computers, Car/Walkers (see below), Baby radios with hard buttons that they can push to activate music, and basically any type of baby toy that allows them to understand "cause and effect".

Remember to slowly introduce them to new toys. Zachary took on to these very quickly and after a few sessions of trying it out, he was thrilled by the noises he could create with them, and had fun being pulled around the house with the toy car. But most parrots are wary of new toys and will need to be introduced slowly. Always go at their pace. Parrots cannot be forced to do something if they are not ready for it.

Amazons also love playing in small areas, so they enjoy cat cubes and ferret beds. It's a place for them to play in private, and also allows them to play peekaboo - another favorite past-time:

Important note about Baby Toys & other plastic toys:
*** (Give parrots only toys that are made of very hard plastic, otherwise they can break them too easily and ingest the pieces. Supervise them with plastic toys always)***