Regular exercise is vital to the overall health of your parrot.

Wild parrots fly, climb, and forage for food throughout most of the day, so there’s no such thing as too much exercise for our companion birds.

In fact, all of their daily activities should encourage a little bit of exercise.

Below are 10 easy and fun ways you can exercise your parrot and get them moving around!

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10 Ways Your Parrot Can Exercise

1. Get Your Parrot To Fly – #1 Best Exercise

By far, one of the best ways to exercise your parrot is to get them flying! Short, medium, and long-distance flights are all great forms of physical exercise. Of course, flight training is a good way to promote flying, but nobody has time to do that all day long.

Other effective ways to encourage your parrot to fly include:

• Giving them a HUGE indoor or outdoor cage/aviary with plenty of flight space

• Arranging that cage in a way that requires them to fly from perch to perch

• Setting up perches and play stands across the house to encourage your parrot to fly between different spaces

2. Climbing Around

While it doesn’t burn nearly as much energy as flight, climbing around the cage, perches, or on other surfaces is a common way pet parrots stay active. Adding a few ladders or a seagrass wall to your bird’s cage will encourage them to climb around.

It uses both beak and leg strength to climb around, so this form of exercise shouldn’t be forgotten.

My cockatiel loves climbing all over my clothing, which is good exercise, especially for how long he does it 😂

3. Give Your Parrot Some Chew Toys

Not only are chew toys loads of fun, but they also give your parrot the chance to exercise their beak through shredding. Provide chew toys of different textures, strengths, and materials to help keep their beaks healthy and trimmed.

Balsa wood, fir wood, cuttlebones, bamboo, and bird-safe natural materials can all make good shredding toys.

Having a variety of high-quality chew toys also helps keep the bird interested and not bored.

4. Target Training

During target training sessions, parrots are required to walk, climb, and even fly to reach the target and earn a treat. The further you make them travel for every treat, the more exercise they’ll naturally get.

As well as physical exercise, parrots get a lot of mental stimulation from learning new tricks and practising previously learnt tricks.

Learn the full tactical guide to target training your bird…

5. Step-Up Training

Stepping up is a behaviour all companion parrots should know. Not only is it great for the relationship, but the action of stepping up and stepping down also provides them with a bit of exercise. Of course, this action doesn’t require too much physical exhaustion, especially compared to flying, but it does get them moving around.

Read the full guide to step-up training…

6. Prop Training (Bowling, Basketball, Tower Rings, etc)

In case you don’t know, prop training is teaching your parrot to do certain things with different toys. For example, parrots can learn to push a bowling ball down an ally or place a basketball through a hoop. Activities, where they need to lift things or push things, are particularly good physical exercises, but the process of learning a complicated trick is a good mental exercise.

Below I’ve linked to the best small parrot prop toy bundles on Amazon that you need to get started on prop training:

3 PC Parrot Training Toys (Training rings, shopping cart, & skateboard)

10 PC Bird Training Toys (Trolley, basketball hoop & balls, bowling ally, training rings)

7. Foraging Toys

Toys that encourage your parrot to search for delicious treats provide great exercise! While foraging, birds need to shred, dig, and lift various things in order to get the treats. This is good exercise for their beaks. Place foraging toys in different places around the room to encourage them to move around even further.

View the top 10 foraging toys for small parrots in 2022…

8. Head Bobbing & Intense Dancing

If you own a cockatoo, you’re going to love this one! If your bird likes going a bit crazy with some intense dancing and head bobbing, you should encourage that, as they’re likely burning a bit of energy. Cockatoos are definitely the most intense with their head bobbing, but other parrots can learn to dance as well!

9. Setup Play Stands & Perches Around The House

One of the easiest ways to get your parrot exercising independently is to set up play stands and perches around the house. If there are multiple places around the room or house for your bird to play, they’ll fly between those areas whenever they want.

Add some good toys to those play areas to encourage them to fly over and exercise further.

10. Shower Your Parrot

A lot of parrots like to flap their wings, preen, and move around while showering. If you’re looking for a quick way to get your parrot exercising independently, leave a bowl of water on top of the cage and wait for them to take interest.

They’ll have fun splashing the water around and you’ll have fun cleaning it up afterwards. 😂

Conclusion | Short Summary

Here’s a summary of the 10 best ways to get your parrot to exercise:

1. Encourage them to fly – #1 Best exercise for birds
2. Climbing around
3. Give your parrot some chew toys
4. Target training
5. Step-up training
6. Prop/toy training
7. Foraging toys
8. Head bobbing & intense dancing
9. Setup play stands & perches around the house
10. Encourage your parrot to shower

A good amount of exercise should be an important part of your parrot’s daily routine. Without a few healthy ways to burn some energy, parrots often find other ways to burn time and energy that may not be as good for them. I’ve heard of a few feather-plucking birds that stopped ripping their feathers after being given more flight time. Excessive screaming can also be a result of a lack of exercise.

An active bird is a happy bird 🙂

What other ways do you keep your parrot exercising and moving around?

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Thank you for reading.