Cockatiels need toys to occupy their minds, bodies, and beaks. Accept that your bird will chew on any toy you buy, and that you will eventually have to replace it. When selecting toys for your cockatiel, keep a few safety tips in mind.
Size
Is the toy the right size for your bird? Large toys can be intimidating to small birds, which makes the birds less likely to play with them. On the other end of the spectrum, larger birds can easily destroy toys designed for smaller birds, and they can sometimes injure themselves severely in the process. Select toys that are designed for cockatiels and small parrots when choosing toys for your pet.
Safety
Is the toy safe? Good choices include sturdy wooden toys (either undyed or painted with bird-safe vegetable dye or food coloring) strung on closed-link chains or vegetable-tanned leather thongs, and rope toys.
Unsafe items to watch out for are brittle plastic toys that can easily be shattered into fragments by a cockatiel’s busy beak, lead-weighted toys that can be cracked open to expose the dangerous lead to curious birds, loose link chains that can catch toenails or beaks, ring toys that are too small to climb through safely, and jingle-type bells that can trap toes, tongues, and beaks.
Cockatiel Favorites
Cockatiels enjoy the following types of toys: chewable wooden items, ranging from clothes pegs (not clothespins, which have springs that can snap on a bird’s wing or leg) to thread spools; wooden ladders, sturdy ropes or cords to climb on; bells to ring; knotted rope or leather toys to preen and chew on; and mirrors to admire themselves in. Be warned, though, that if you give a single cockatiel a mirror toy, she may bond to the reflection she sees and consider the bird in the mirror a more interesting companion than you.
Homemade Toys
As an alternative to store-bought toys, you can entertain your cockatiel with some everyday items you have around the house. Give your bird an empty paper towel roll or toilet paper tube (from unscented paper only, please) to chew. Let her shred subscription cards from your favorite magazines or chew up some clean computer paper. Give her a Ping-Pong ball to chase. String some Cheerios on a piece of vegetabletanned leather or offer your bird a dish of raw pasta pieces to destroy.
Tips & Warnings
- When you’re introducing new toys to your cockatiel for the first time, you might want to leave the toy next to the cage for a few days before actually putting it in the cage. Some birds accept new items in their cages almost immediately, but others need a few days to size up a new toy, dish, or perch before sharing cage space with it.
- If you buy rope toys for your cockatiel, make sure her nails are trimmed regularly to prevent them from snagging in the rope, and discard the toy when it becomes frayed to prevent accidents.
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