Lola’s Latest Cage Setup!

I have to tell you, getting my S.O. to watch the enrichment DVD from my last post with me was about the smartest thing I’ve ever done.  We were rearranging Lola’s cage yesterday (which he insisted so that we can “make sure she is fully enriched!!”) and he basically took over the operation!  I was only there to put washers in place and screw on a few wing nuts.  Actually, he did a really great job.  He configured some things in new ways that I hadn’t thought to before, and Lola really seems to be enjoying it.

the whole view!

I couldn’t get a very good photo of the whole thing because of the way the room is– this is about the best I could do.  But it’s the whole picture, with Lola on the top left in the photo.

with the door open

So here it is with the door open. The first thing you see is that there’s her trusty double-sided ribbonwood perch from the Birdsafe Store right on the door, and a cute little flagstone porch at the bottom from Bird on the Rocks.  Her foot toy bucket is next to it, on the left.  (Unfortunately, the company that made this awesome stainless steel bucket– Grey Feather Toys– is no longer in business, it seems.  It’s really a bummer because it was one of our absolute favorites.)

the upper left-hand side of the cage

On the upper left, there’s an awesome grapevine wood perch that you can’t see too well here, but Lola loves, and a mini side-mounted foraging pot, both from Things for Wings.  The stainless steel toy in the back there is a MegaFone, also from GFT and no longer available, and the toy that Lola is playing with in the photo is one of Kris Porter’s fantastic foraging blocks.  The big wooden slab toy with the coins is from I Got a Woody.

left side view

Here’s a better view of that mini foraging pot.  Isn’t it cute?  Right in front of that,  the little stubby perch is an awesome willow step from the Little Perch Company— she is obsessed with ripping the chunky bark off of these.  I actually originally purchased them for Sabrina but it turns out Lola likes them a lot more.  Below that is a pretty beat up Things for Wings toy that she loves, as usual, and then a gorgeous sandblasted manzanita forked perch also from Things for Wings.

the center / back of the cage… and Lola photobombing it

In the center there’s her absolute favorite supreme cotton rope swing from Big Beaks Bird Toys, a perennial favorite.  Sadly, it’s blocking a great Avian Stainless noisy toy, the Major Tude.  Behind all that is one of those extremely cool shelf-style cork perches from I Got a Woody.  I was going to stick it in the like a normal shelf perch, but my S.O. insisted that we angle it so that she had to climb it.  I was skeptical that it would be wide enough for her to be able to do so, or that my clumsy bird would be able to make her way up, but I let him try it.  To my surprise, Lola absolutely loved it!!  She spent a good while on the perch climbing, inspecting, and chewing it up.

Lola on her cork shelf

Below that is a rope perch, the last one we have left from GFT 😦  We are really sad about that.  But the S.O. took it and wound it in a cool way so that it goes from the center back of the cage all the way up to the front, right-hand side of the cage, almost like stair case.  I think Lola likes this mode of transportation from one side to the other.  It also means that I can hang more toys in the center area of the cage and she can actually reach them!

the right side of the cage

Here’s the right side.  You can see that the rope perch goes all the way up, and there are several skewered toys around it.  First is just a simple pandan box on a skewer, which is one of the ways I get Lola to forage for some of her food.  Behind that towards the back is the Basswood Stairway to Heaven from I Got a Woody, which I skewered.  You can barely see the last skewered toy I just realized– you can kind of see a wood chunk on the far right– but that’s an ugly foraging toy I made for Lola.  In that back corner area there are two food bowls (one you can’t really see, but it’s on the left of the pumice perch), and of course the very noticeable pumice perch.  The look of those perches still cracks me up, but hey, they get the job done.  Down below, there’s a big beautiful Things for Wings Toy, cornered by a lovely sandblasted manzanita perch and a Manu Mineral perch on the left.

view from the right side feeder door

One last angle so that you can see the acrylic foraging toy in the corner.  I absolutely love these toys, made by Parrot Island Inc.  I am very conscious of using food-safe plastics for foraging toys, but the vast majority of foraging toys on the market are all made with polycarbonate, which has BPA.  Parrot Island Inc.’s toys are all made with acrylic, which is food safe.  They are also incredibly thick and durable and very well made!  I highly recommend them.  You can also see another adorable little foraging pot on the right, and then a cool natural wood perch that actual swivels and can be configured to point at any angle!  That’s from Expandable Habitats.  I had forgotten about that perch for a while but it’s great for those hard to reach spots when a straight perch just won’t do.

And there it is!  I think he did an awesome job of designing it.  There’s a great mix of natural wood perches, from sandblasted manzanita to grapevine wood to cork to willow to ash, a pumice perch, a flagstone perch, a soft cotton rope perch, and platforms as well.  There are snappy wood toys, foraging toys, skewered toys, softer cork toys, noisy toys, shreddable toys, pretty toys, and ugly toys.  There’s a nice swing and even a crooked perching surface.  Lola seems extremely pleased with the new look herself, which is of course what matters most.