Ways To Exercise Your Bird

In the wild, birds fly hundreds of miles per day, forage for food, and participate in countless other survival-related activities that help give them intense physical workouts. Unfortunately, placing birds in captivity can limit their opportunities to provide themselves with adequate exercise to maintain their physical conditions, so bird owners must do what they can to maximize their pets' opportunities to move around and exercise.

Things like ropes and ladders for your bird to climb on can encourage movement and the working of major muscle groups. Finding fun "foot toys" for your bird to toss around and play with outside of their cage can also promote good exercise habits.

Whatever toys you choose, make sure to have as much variety as possible and rotate them in and out of use so that your bird doesn't get bored with them too quickly.

Physically challenging games with your bird are another great way to get them moving more for their physical health. Games like skateboarding, basketball, foraging and others are fun physical games for your bird. 

A great way to help your bird become more active is to get involved with trick training your pet. Not only can learning tricks provide lots of exercise for your pet, but it helps to reduce boredom and offers a great bonding experience.

Perhaps the single most crucial thing that you can do to give your bird more exercise is to make sure your bird gets out of the cage supervised playtime every day. Birds in the wild can walk around and stretch their wings and legs whenever they need to, but pet birds can feel cramped in a cage, no matter how spacious they are. 

Allowing your bird to have supervised playtime in a bird-safe area of your home each day will help make sure that all your pet's muscle groups get the exercise that is so vital to their maintenance.

Birds are naturals at dancing and seem to love shaking their tail feathers or bobbing their heads to upbeat music. Try setting aside a few minutes each day to listen to a couple of songs with your bird, and pay attention to the kinds of music they seem to respond to the most.

Once you have figured out the type of music that gets your pet moving, you can make a customized playlist for your pet to dance its tiny feet to.

This type of training is when we train our birds to fly to us or back to us when we call for them. Recall training can be beneficial and even a lifesaver if your bird ever escapes your home and is not free flight trained. During recall training, your bird is getting more flying in, which means more exercise. For all the energy they are burning, they get rewarded with a yummy treat. Treats are what encourage this training!

Happy exercising!