What is a foraging toy?

To forage means to rummage or root around for food, the activity at which a wild parrot spends the largest part of his day. And a toy, in a parrot’s world, is pretty much anything from which it gains benefit. Therefore, by definition, a foraging toy can be anything the enables a search for food, even another food. We can use foods as foraging toys.

As expected, the very best opportunities for food foraging are provided by nature itself. Nuts and peas in the pod are perfect examples of foods that are built into their own foraging ...

It has been an exceptionally awful week for me. My dog Belle lost her battle with cancer and Cushings Disease. We had to have her euthanized on Saturday. It had been a long time coming, but somehow even knowing what we were building up to didn’t made it any easier.

Belle was a staffy that had been with my family for nearly eight years. We don’t know her exact age because she was a rescued dog. My parents had found her in the Australian ...

Have you ever blown an entire week’s wage on a new indoor cage for your parrot and then discovered that it sucks? I challenge anyone who has done that to refrain from complaining about it!
About 6 months ago, that’s exactly what happened to me. I decided to ‘upgrade’ my male eclectus parrot’s cage. Stainless steel cages aren’t readily available in Australia, so his old cage was a powder coated one. Unfortunately, they ...

Lately a few people have been sending me messages asking for cleaning tips in relation to birds. Some of the questions have had a definite tinge of desperation to them and I can’t help but imagine these evil birds that are intentionally throwing food and poo at their humans. I can just see their beaky grins of delight when they manage to hit their target.

I can’t help but smile at the irony of my being asked for ...

I pretty much live in a zoo. Multiple birds, dogs and cats permanently own me, there are also a few goldfish and the odd passing rescue waiting for re-home. Most of the time, we all get along beautifully but it has taken work to get to that point.

My mother recently added to the zoo, by adopting a shelter cat. It wasn’t an easy decision whether or not to take on ...

There’s a common misconception that working in wildlife rescue means working with lots of amazingly cute and cuddly animals. Unfortunately, the real situation is quite different. A LOT of wild rescue work results in the animal being euthanised because they’re usually extremely ill before they come to someone’s notice for rescue.

Not many photos of dead animals make it to the media and no decent rescuer is going to be stressing out a seriously ill ...