so i spoke to the vet,


He did a once over on paulie he said he's healthy no problems accept for that little chewing spot on his left breast area. he suggested that he rather not put paulie on medication because he feels that it may lead to future health problems. Since paulie is still young, why start him on some medication he does not need,

when this can be 'nipped in the bud'. he suggested i try to teach paulie to forage. he had a foraging toy and showed it to paulie. Paulie being the chicken he is jumped onto my shirt and ran behind my head. Yeah he suggested something like tamale or burrito wraps and place some yummy treats in there(i'll research). Paulie gets stimulation, but he needs something else to do, so today im going to Petco and buying some foraging toys, treats and hitting the supermarket and look for those tamale wraps. He said give it some time and if it gets worse, the collar will be required.

i love my vet because he doesnt go eveasive when its such a small problem he gives great suggestions and they usually work well. unless he feels that the bird is going to benefit from it.

so im off to Petco..

that is good news. Hope that the foraging toys help.

tamale wraps sounds like an idea I wish I would of thought of. They are just corn husks you can even make your own if you eat corn on the cob by washing them and patting them dry and then drying them out in your oven or dehydrator although I find the oven works best.

hehehe i dont eat corn.. unless its popcorn. So i just got back from petco i got him a bunch of foraging toys and a few new toys for tilly (and a funny looking pinata for both of the..lol) i brought paulie
a treasure chest for paulie and stick some stuff in there for him to get it out. so hopefully his little chewy thing will stop.


only the best for my Kids!!

thats cool I think over the week end I am going to experiment with making foraging toys out of corn husks that was an excellent idea thank you for sharing it.

Thats great news! yay new toys! LOL I'm sure they are happy

Punky has this problem-I got her a roll of toilet paper. Yup. plain old unscented one ply paper, and hung it on one of her perches (stuck the perch through the roll). She had fun shredding it today while I was at work, and only a couple feathers were pulled. I also got her a corn on the cob and left it wrapped. She is slowly picking at that too, and its good to eat! Im hoping that will help her stay busy
Doreen

huh i never thought bout that,

Im gonna try that since paulie is my little napkin destroyer. thats for the idea.

Your vet sounds really neat. I like his way of thinking. I've gathered a couple ideas on foraging toys while I was at the sanctuary last week. Inside every cage was a box, depending on the size of parrot, for the smaller ones they had one of those chinese take out container boxes filled with different foot toys, papers, and some treats hidden insde. It was either fastened to the side bars or put on the bottom of the cage. The bigger parrots had just bigger cardboard boxes (shoe box size) with foot toys, shredding stuff, and just different things and treats hidden inside. They would go and "forage" through the box to get to the treats.

One U2 in particular had a really neat routine. He would take everything out of the box, eat the almond and then put everything back into the box. Then, a few minutes later, would take the entire box and dump it and then shredd the box. LOL



For the large parrots they also took phone books and opened them up and layed them on top of the cage with the open pages hanging through the bars, and the birds would have a field day shredding those.