What Everybody Ought to Know About Beginning Foraging For Toucans
What is foraging?
Foraging is the act of animals searching widely for food.
In the wild, animals, particularly birds, can spend up to 16 hours per day foraging for food dependent on the species!
Toucans are known for their amazing and colorful beaks. Have you ever thought about what role that beak plays in their attainment of food? It is thought that the long and slender beak of a toucan plays a significant role in their ability to forage in the wild. Their long beak provides an opportunity for them to access foods that others may not be able to access with smaller beaks. For example, toucans may be able to reach for food in large cavities deep in a tree, as well as at the end of tree branches that cannot hold much weight (1). Put simply, those big beaks can get them into places no others can go!
Why provide foraging?
Due to the amount of time that wild birds spend foraging it only makes sense to provide them with lots of foraging opportunities in captivity. Toucans are no different and need to be stimulated and provided with enrichment to prevent boredom and behavior problems.
Foraging can be an excellent way to provide enrichment when you aren’t home. I give my Curl Crested Aracari a foraging activity every time I leave the house. This provides her with an activity to do while I’m at work.
I typically use her favorite fruits, usually blueberries or cut up grapes. She also LOVES dragon fruit so if I have that, it is a special treat and I will use that for foraging as well. Edible flowers are another one of her favorite treats that I use to provide in foraging activities. The flowers are fun because they can be stuffed into things easily and hidden better than the fruits. Waxworms are also a treat I use only for training or for foraging. They also don’t move much and kind of stay in place so they don’t “get away”, which I like. Let’s face it no one wants to come home to worms squiggly in their house, at least I don’t!
Foraging is a great way for toucans, and all birds for that matter, to get exercise! Do you have a couch potato? Many birds can turn into couch potatoes if not provided with foraging activities. A good foraging activity, especially one that is strategically placed can provide great exercise. Once your bird gets used to basic foraging you can start to make the foraging harder and harder.
An easy way to do this is to place the activity/toy in a hard-to-reach spot. This will encourage stretching and also encourage the bird to move to a different spot to figure out how to access their treats.
How to start?
If your bird is not used to foraging or hasn’t been provided with opportunities to forage, you want to start very easy. You want your bird to be successful so they are rewarded and their foraging behavior is reinforced. Simply adding more food bowls and placing them in different areas of their enclosure will encourage foraging. This is probably the most basic and easy way to start. You want your bird to realize that food is available in other places besides their food bowl!
Be sure to use their favorite treats to encourage foraging. For most toucans, this is blueberries, although you have to assess what your toucan likes the best. This could also change at different points during the day, week, or season, so it is important to assess. I usually watch my aracari in the morning when I present her food dish. I watch to see what she goes for first. Sometimes it is blueberries, but she has been known to take cut-up grapes over blueberries as well as dragon fruit. So it is important to know what your bird’s favorites are so they are motivated to forage for them.
Beginning aracari or toucanet foraging:
I found with my aracari one of the easiest foraging activities was using fingertraps. Fingertraps are lightweight, so it is easy for them to pick up. They also are open at each end, so this is a perfect spot to stick in some blueberries! The fingertrap allows for your aracari to see the reward and go right to the toy. This is just one example of providing a super easy and simple beginner foraging activity. I also love these because, if I’m in a rush in the morning, it is an easy activity to set up. Please note that I have not tried this with the larger toucans, and this activity may only be appropriate for the toucanets and aracaris.
During the summer months, my local farm stand has champagne grapes. Don’t worry, they don’t actually have champagne in them, they are called that because they are typically paired with champagne on a cheeseboard. A very simple and beginning foraging activity I have used with my aracari is to get a bunch of champagne grapes and hang them with a clothespin in her enclosure. She loves grapes and champagne grapes are no exception!
Beginning foraging for larger toucans:
The larger toucans, due to their size, come with more challenges for coming up with unique foraging ideas. I have heard from large toucan owners that sometimes they will eat paper, so some of the suggestions for aracaris and toucanets may not be appropriate for the larger toucans. Here is an example of a beginning foraging activity for the larger toucans.
This is such a super easy foraging idea for beginners. (This would also work great for toucanets and aracaris, just cut the squash to the appropriate size). Using cavities of food is a fun and easy way to provide a foraging activity. Pumpkin or melons are great to use for this. (If using a pumpkin just use the cavity, as pumpkin is not an approved toucan food. But, it can be filled with fruit and a fun way to present their food in the Autumn months.)
Another super easy activity is to provide a large portion of the food, such as watermelon or papaya, and let them pull off their own pieces. Just be sure to place these activities in different areas of their enclosure or other areas perhaps outside of their enclosure so they are foraging and looking for their food other than in their food bowl. These are the beginning stages of foraging. This activity can be super messy but provides lots of foraging fun for your toucan.
All large toucans, aracaris, and toucanets can benefit from fruit on a fruit skewer. They come in different sizes, usually small, medium, and large. They are easy to find at most online bird stores or on Amazon. All you need to do is simply cut up the fruit and skewer it on the post. Then hang it inside or outside the enclosure. There you go, another very simple and easy beginning foraging activity that will get your toucan moving around and foraging for his/her food.
My toucan won’t forage, now what?
I have often heard bird owners state that their bird won’t forage when presented with opportunities. It is ok, don’t panic! One of the easiest ways to motivate your bird to forage when they won’t is to make the treat more valuable. The way to do this is to not give their treat at ANY OTHER TIME except for in foraging activities. This will make the treat more valuable and encourage them to look for it.
Also, make sure the activity isn’t too hard. Remember, when you are first introducing foraging you want to make sure it is a super easy, a fool-proof activity. As mentioned above the easiest way to start is by simply adding more food bowls. In the morning when you cut up their normal food for the day, take that and divide it into several other bowls. This will provide their normal amount of food but they will have to search for it and move around to get it. Again, this is very basic but it will teach your toucan to look for its food.
Speaking of foraging….be careful what you wish for!
It is important to note that toucans love to play with all things, edible and not! As a matter of fact they can usually make a toy out of anything that isn’t a toy! Toucans are very curious and when out of their enclosure need to be supervised at all times. Think of them as a toddler roaming around the house! You always need to keep one eye on them because you never know what mischief they will get into.
Providing Foraging is Essential
Giving your toucan foraging opportunities throughout the day is essential. It provides mental stimulation, enrichment, and exercise.
Don’t limit yourself to providing these opportunities only within your toucan’s enclosure. You can easily provide these opportunities outside of the enclosure in different areas. One of the things that gives me so much joy is when I see my toucan out of her enclosure forging like a bird would in the wild! I try to provide her with as many opportunities in her enclosure as well as out of her enclosure. These opportunities are limitless. All that is needed is your imagination and some creativity! If that fails, go on some bird groups or youtube. Most “typical” bird activities can be adapted for toucans in some way.
Remember these tips when starting:
- Use your bird’s most preferred treats when starting foraging.
- Make sure the activity is VERY easy, you don’t want to make it too hard that they give up.
- If your bird will not forage you may need to provide their treat ONLY for foraging to make it more valuable.
- As your bird gets better and better at foraging, you can then make the activities harder.
Toucan – biology dictionary (1) https://biologydictionary.net/toucan/
