About a month ago I gave Joe a small Happy Hut™ that the cockatiels and the budgies clearly rejected (it hung in one of their cages for at least a month and they wouldn't even go near it). So I hung it next to Joe's favorite perch and he immediately took to it. He absolutely loves it, it's like his girlfriend. He probably spends 70% of his day preening it and snuggling up next to it. Seeing that it is a small Happy Hut, there's no way Joe could actually get inside of it. And even if it was big enough, I know he would not get inside of it if I just hung it on the side of his cage. You see, Joe has very specific paths that he takes in his cage: One is climbing down the rope perch from his favorite perch to either the door of the cage or a wooden perch that spans the width of the cage, and the other is just walking along the wooden perch to get to his food and water bowls. Joe never climbs all over the bars of the cage, and he is probably the first bird I've ever met who does not do this. I've tried to get him to climb over to the other perches and toys in his cage, but he won't do it. He has his paths, and he's sticking to them. But either way, because of this, there's not really a way he could get into a Happy Hut unless it was directly in the line of one of his paths, which I would not block.
Until yesterday. I bought Joe a medium Happy Hut (it doesn't seem like they even make a large one) and hung it by one of the perches he never visits, thinking that maybe it would entice him to move over there. But he didn't touch it, he seemed content with his first hut. A few hours later I took the new hut out and hung it from one of the bars on his playgym (the top of his cage), but he still didn't seem to show any interest in it. Later on, I went upstairs to wake Kory up for work, and what did I see? Joe's little butt sticking out of the new Happy Hut! I was so excited for him and as soon as he heard me going crazy, he quickly backed out of his hut and came over to tell me how happy he was to have a nice snuggly little cave that he could actually get into. After I was done being excited, Joe went back into his hut and let me take a few pictures of his silly butt sticking out.
If you look at the photo on this page that I linked earlier, the cockatiel is completely in the Happy Hut, and if you look at the picture above, you can see that Joe does not fit all that well into his hut. Looks like Kory will have to sew him a bigger and better cave!
