A Question for Breeders

Do you provide toys and enrichment for your breeding pairs? I was browsing through youtube videos, and I came upon this video:



It started to make me think. Looking back to other videos of breeding set ups, you never seem to see any toys. It's always pet birds that get them. I mean, my flock has enough toys to last them years, and then some.

I offer the budgies toys, even though they have each other for company. And they still play with them daily as if they were alone.

And Einstein, when I'm home, he sticks to me like glue. But this doesn't mean I'm going to deprive him of toys.

Looking at the breeder birds (I'm assuming) that they don't get as much out of cage time as a pet would (in general). So there goes that enrichment.

Do breeders assume that the birds are just going to mate all day?

And wouldn't it be smart to make sure that the breeder birds are healthy in every single way? I mean, we all know that intellectual stimulation is good for our birds. Healthy parents make healthy babies. And healthy babies are what breeders want, isn't?

I feel like I'm doing a bit of a rant, so I'm going to leave it at that.

If I offended anyone, I didn't mean to. Just stating how I feel.

I am against most 'typical' breeding practices of offering a pair, often a larger species such as the African Grey, a 4x5 ish or similarly sized enclosure that the birds will never leave for the rest of their 50+ years.

Most breeding pair setups that I have seen, I would consider it cruel. WAY too small to hold birds that will never get out of that cage. I see most of these pairs as baby machines, adequately cared for just enough to consistently produce babies.

That's disgusting. I never actually saw the breeding cage set up where I got Einstein. I walked into her home, and her entire house was dedicated to the birds. Greys hanging from the ceiling, massive cages for conures, and a playset with Einstein on it...

I think it would probably break my heart to see where my budgies were bred.

My breeder birds have toys (mostly chew toys with a bell) And they do play with them when not raising babies. The ones that don't hate people get out of cage time, but freak if i carry them away from their cage or each other. Most of the (wild) breeder wouldn't come out of their cage if you left the door open.Even the (wild) breeders seem to enjoy talking to me when they see me and get excited when i come around,because i talk to each of them.But they don't want me to mess with them.They have their flock of similar species breeders near them and they do interact, mostly vocal.I think that Amazons are different from birds like the tiels, their world turns around their one mate who's never more than 1/2 wing span away. The Tiels have tons of toys and play with everything in their flight cage.It's the birds that are bonded to humans (like Jake ) that really need the added enrichment, they don't have their mate 24/7.

GlassOnion wrote:

I am against most 'typical' breeding practices of offering a pair, often a larger species such as the African Grey, a 4x5 ish or similarly sized enclosure that the birds will never leave for the rest of their 50+ years.

Most breeding pair setups that I have seen, I would consider it cruel. WAY too small to hold birds that will never get out of that cage. I see most of these pairs as baby machines, adequately cared for just enough to consistently produce babies.

The "professional" breeders are going towards larger caging. Also, with the greys the "professional" breeders do not keep them in individual breeder cages year round. The flock them in the off season.

As for toys, it depends on the pairs. The maintenance of the toys is disruptive to some pairs. Mostly I use large chunks of wood and large chunks of fresh fruits and veg as my enrichment. I've mentioned before that I like different foods for enrichement. That's my preference. Please keep in mind "toy" can be anything. So, generally, the colorful toys you buy in stores, no most cages for breeders do not have them. Instead they get the daily assortment of food goodies, raw branches (like the rosemary clippings), toilet paper rolls, etc. Things that don't require a lot of disturbance to maintain.

When I bred tiels, Crystal & Bailey (I did NOT name the duo, they came that way ), they had toys and were in a decent sized cage.

I never thought *not* to give them toys - they loved them Especially bells and things they could preen.

All of the budgie breeding pairs I've seen at the store have toys of some kind - swings, dangly things with bells, stuff like that. It never occurred to me NOT to give them toys/enrichment of some kind. Like Roz said, I'll give them Apples and greens and stuff, so that will be enrichment too.... My birds wont have huge cages, but they'll probably have out of cage time if they want it. I know that the lady I bought them from would open the cage and they'd go flying around the house for a while then go back to the cage when they were done. When I get the birds paired up and they've bonded and know which home is theirs, I may try doing that. I don't know why it wouldn't work, especially if they're not nesting... I may have to do some research (or ask an expert, (Roz?)) about it first though. I've never tried it before.

I do think that some of the enrichment we do is making up for not giving them the opportunity for companionship and entertainment that being a pair provides. So while I'm not condoning undersized caging or lack of any thought for their mental well-being, it seems to me that a breeding pair has a big leg up on enrichment over the pet, especially if the pet's owner can't devote most of the waking day to the bird.

And now I see that Richard said much the same, guess I didn't scroll back far enough. Great minds, right?

Who's Richard?

Richard=Capt

DOH!!! I knew that!!

VickiNumbers wrote:

I know that the lady I bought them from would open the cage and they'd go flying around the house for a while then go back to the cage when they were done. When I get the birds paired up and they've bonded and know which home is theirs, I may try doing that. I don't know why it wouldn't work, especially if they're not nesting... I may have to do some research (or ask an expert, (Roz?)) about it first though. I've never tried it before.

I've never done this, but I have known several budgie hobby breeders that have done this. Individual cages w/ nest boxes and then daily open the cage doors and let them fly around, leaving the cage doors open. When the birds were done flying around and went back into their respective "rooms" (cages), they'd get closed up again. Having individual cages alleviated any nesting aggression or nest destruction by other pairs. I've seen this situation work more than once so the answer would be yes, I believe it would work even when they're actively nesting. Just open the cages and they have the choice to fly around or not.