Paper Jewels

So the stress the last couple of days has been Zini, our Sun Conure. Normally she’s loud and sassy, superactive and playful. But since the 3rd she’s been slowing down and getting tired all the time. We thought maybe she and her buddy, Willy the Quaker Parrot, had gotten stressed by all the Loud Noises and Smells of the Fourth of July (which around here lasts from, say, 2nd July to… well, it hasn’t stopped yet, and today’s the 7th).

So off to the vet’s yesterday. Yes, we should’ve taken her a day earlier - but it was a federal holiday and, well, we hedged because she was eating better and we thought, maybe it’s okay. We shouldn’t have waited. Turns out she has an infection and is maybe anemic, and she spent last night in hospital.

She’s been with Willy for 5 years now (since she was 3 months old) and they have only spent one night apart, in all that time. So this separation was MAJOR stress for them. We brought her home today, tentatively, with firm instructions on how to administer her medicine. We just thought - well, we can give her bunches of attention, more than the vet possibly can, and make sure she eats. She only weighs 100-102 grams average when she’s healthy and she’d lost over TEN GRAMS - a huge and scary loss - in just two days.

She was at 89 grams when we brought her home this morning. This evening she’s at 97 grams and still eating (pellets, apples, and grapes - lots of grapes)

So: the power of love. Ours - and definitely Willy’s.

We have two wonderful pet birds - or they have us. Willy is a Quaker Parrot, opinionated and fussy and egotistical and very smart. Zini is a Sun Conure, the baby of the family (though she’ll be five this year) and the most adorable (charming, spoiled, and did I mention egotistical?) person in the house. Here they are after a bath:

So my question / problem is… toys. They are both smart and active and when I’m nearby, their cage is open so they can wander around at will (on top of the cage, not through the house!) And we need more toys for them. Toys they can interact with, puzzles to solve, things to take apart - Zini especially thinks the very best toys are ones she can destroy. This is fine with me, but it’s so hard to know what’s safe.

Many commercial bird toys are too big for them - or uninteresting. (A series of alphabet blocks in safe finishes? Fun to look at but they don’t DO anything.) Leather strips? Fun to chew on - but potentially dangerous.

P.S. I should add, the very best toy we’ve found so far, is a peanut (with shell) wrapped in a square of plain white paper. Wrap the peanut in the paper, twist the ends, and they have to work to extract the peanut from the paper. They both love these. Willy likes to eat the peanuts, and Zini could care less about eating them - she just wants to destroy them. And they make a very satisfying CRUNCH while she’s at it.

I’m always on the search for fun safe toys. If anybody has a suggestion, I’d love to hear it.