Homemade Parakeet Toys

Playful parakeets love to go for a swing, hang like a bat from hanging toys and shred paper toys. Making homemade parakeet toys is an inexpensive way to spoil your pet budgie, while flexing your imagination. Make a quick trip to the craft store, grab a drill, scour the cabinets for a few dried fruits, and you can easily craft a handful of homemade parakeet toys that rival the most expensive creations at the local pet store.

  1. Supplies

    • Choose to-making supplies that are safe for the parakeet to chew, and possibly ingest. To avoid a choking hazard, select beads and accessories that are larger than the bird's beak. Choose natural unpainted woods. Look for fruit tree branches or untreated pieces of lumber. Choose stainless steel metal accessories, and avoid zinc or lead. Use natural strings such as hemp or twine for fasteners, and avoid all glues. Natural, undyed papers may also be used. Add edible items such as dried fruits, plain popcorn and whole nuts to the parakeet toys.

    Types of Toys

    • Focus on three types of toys to make for your pet parakeet: chew, moving and climbing toys. Chew toys keep the bird occupied, while wearing down his beak. Hard wooden toys, calcium and mineral rings and toys with cuttle bones attached are healthy choices. Moving toys keep an active bird in motion. Make swings, or long ropes full of toys that can be pushed around and swayed. Climbing toys encourage exercise, and help the bird move around the cage from one play area to another.

    Easy Toys

    • Start with a natural fiber string, and build a strand of alternating colorful beads, unfinished wooden blocks and pieces of dried apricot. Tie a donut shaped mineral ring to the bottom of the strand to help it hang straight. Hang the toy from the ceiling of the cage for your bird to chew and push with her beak. Use a small drill to make holes in a piece of a branch from an apple tree. Thread a piece of hemp string through each end, making a swing. Hang the toy in the middle of the parakeet cage so he has room to maneuver the swing. Use pieces of untreated wooden dowel rods to make a small ladder. Use twine to attach the wood pieces, or use smaller dowels to fit the wood pieces together. Thread one large colorful bead on each ladder rung.