Looking to add a little enrichment to your parrot's life? If you haven't introduced it to foraging yet, we highly encourage you to give it a try. Parrot foraging toys are a fantastic way to stimulate natural food-searching behaviours in your feathered pet and make feeding time more exciting. 

Keep reading to find out why parrot foraging toys are so important, plus a few of our personal favourite, tried-and tested buy and DIY ideas!

6 Fun Parrot Foraging Toys to Buy

1. Hanging ball parrot foraging toy

A classic! Hang or place this dangling ball toy in a spot where your parrot can easily reach it, then stuff it with some millet or other treats. Experienced toy enthusiasts will dig right in, and even the more apprehensive birds will eventually get over their suspicion of the big, coloured object in order to get to the food.

Ball foraging toys make a great option for both smaller and large parrots. All that changes are the foods you put inside them, and how often they'll need replacement! Tip: for your own sanity, remove the bell if your bird is one of those that likes to sit and ring it for hours. 

2. Hanging cup foraging toy

Here's one for small to medium-sized parrots that haven't had a lot of foraging practice yet. This hanging toy consists of a transparent cup, topped with a loose 'lid'. The idea is straightforward: you can fill the cup with your bird's favourite treats, and then leave it up to them to figure out how to reach them.

Too easy? You can try hanging beginner-level foraging toys like this one further away from perches to make accessing them more challenging for your parrot. Making the star-shaped lid more difficult to remove will also prevent foraging experts from getting their snacks within seconds.

3. Pineapple parrot toy

The classic pineapple toy is a pretty popular one in the parrot world. This common design is made of coloured palm leaves folded in such a way that the resulting toy features lots of little pouches. Perfect to hide treats in and encourage your bird to forage! 

We like the pineapple foraging toys because they're shreddable due to the palm leaf material, giving parrots the opportunity to practice their instinctual chewing and preening behaviours. Additionally, these toys are available in different sizes. Whatever kind of parrot you have, there's always a pineapple that will match it.

4. Bird kabob

As shown in a 2010 study (plus many parrot owners' personal experiences), one very easy but effective way to get the most out of feeding time, preventing your parrot from gulping down its entire meal in under a minute, is to offer larger chunks. It makes them spend more time eating and less time sitting around being bored.

We like to offer our flock big chunks of vegetables and fruit using a hanging bird kabob toy. This is basically a skewer that can be hung from the cage. It ensures the food can't fall like it would if you place it in a food bowl (parrots are pretty good at dropping their meals), while the dangling aspect adds a little extra challenge.

Common favourites for the kabob include apple, carrot, and romaine lettuce. You know your parrot best, though!

5. Parrot treat tube

Got a parrot on your hands that isn't too sure how foraging works yet? We like using this handy treat tube to introduce birds to the concept. Because it's transparent, they can see the food inside and will almost always begin manipulating the tube to get their coveted treats.

They soon catch on to the fact that treats may be hidden anywhere, start to more actively search for them, and become more accepting to foraging in general. The tube quickly stops being a challenge, after which you can start introducing more difficult foraging toys.

For an easy option, fill the tube with small items that fall out if it's rolled. If that seems too easy for your parrot, you can instead stuff slightly larger treats inside, which will take a bit more work to get to.

Parrot foraging box

A fun foraging toy can take many shapes! Thinking outside the box helps to come up with the best ideas, but surprisingly enough, may also lead you to actually think of the inside of a box. A foraging box, that is.

A parrot foraging box is a fantastic way to encourage even birds who aren't too familiar with the concept yet to forage for their food. The idea is to take a simple cardboard box and fill it with all sorts of items parrots love, like small toys and treats. Then, you add shredded paper, hay, or parrot-safe wood shavings to hide those desirable items. And let the fun begin!

You can make a foraging box yourself, but we prefer starting out with a store-bought one. This can then be replenished with new materials whenever necessary. 

2 Fun DIY Parrot Foraging Toys

We love coming up with homemade (foraging) toys for our flocks. It's loads cheaper than buying new ones all the time, especially if you've got one (or multiple) of those parrots who manages to destroy their toys faster than you can buy them. 

Additionally, going the DIY route is a great way to reduce waste. You'll often have to remove toys from a parrot's cage because they're spent and can become unsafe, but if you take those toys apart, many of the pieces comprising them will actually still be good to reuse. Combine them with store-bought parts and you can come up with some unique creations, tailored to your bird.

Parrots love everything they can chew, pull apart and destroy. Examples of parrot toy-making parts you can try include:

• Soft (balsa) wood shapes coloured with vegetable dye
• Vine balls
• Coffee filters and cupcake liners
• Coconut shells (store-bought or cleaned at home)
• Shredded paper or parrot-safe wood shavings
• Loofah rings
• Cuttlebone and calcium blocks
• Clean popsicle sticks
• Cholla cactus and other natural wood
• Cork bark

And much, much more!

1. Hanging coco parrot foraging toy

Ever buy fresh coconuts? If you open them by cutting them in half, you can use the leftover shells for parrot toys! It's not difficult if you have a small saw and a drill, although you can also buy coconut shell pieces in-store.

For this hanging coco foraging toy, you can obviously use any materials you like, but we went for:

• Wood clasp (store-bought)
• Untreated hemp twine (had on hand)
• Loofah rings (store-bought)
• Vine balls (store-bought)
• Coconut shell tops (had on hand)
• Some leftover shredded paper (had on hand)

To make the toy, stack the items however you'd like, but include a part in the middle where you use two coconut shell pieces and vine balls to create a slightly opened ball. Stuff the ball with some shredded paper and your parrot's favourite snacks. You can also press seeds or small pellets into the loofah.

Slightly loose stacking of the pieces ensures your bird can safely worm its beak into and out of the ball to get to the treats, without the risk of getting stuck. Larger parrots may even manage to break the coco shell apart.

2. Edible calcium forager

We somehow always have half-spent calcium blocks and cuttlebones lying around. The same probably goes for most parrot owners! So why not come up with a toy that combines basic foraging with these essential sources of calcium?

In case you weren't aware, getting enough calcium is very important for a healthy bird. They need it to produce healthy feathers and to maintain various other crucial bodily functions. Hens especially need lots of calcium when they're laying, as they can start breaking down their own bones if they don't get enough.

Aside from the calcium sources, you can again use any items you'd like for this toy, although we do particularly recommend the loofah rings. They're perfect to press seeds or small pellets into for extra foraging fun for small parrots.

Here's what we used:

• Quick link (store-bought)
• Vegetable-dyed wood pieces (store-bought)
• Cuttlebone pieces with drilled holes (had on hand)
• Old calcium blocks with drilled holes (had on hand)
• Loofah rings (store-bought)
• Aspen wood shavings (store-bought, for preening fun)