I have one of those unique-to-me hardware questions: is there a not-too-expensive optical mouse, with a cord that is not easily shredded by my avian buddies, Peanut the Parrot or Pinkerton the Cockatoo?
If “fully parrot proof” is not available (and parrots are masters of Beak Fu so that may be hard to achieve) I would accept something that is at least going to take some serious effort by Mr. Bird to get through. My current issue is that I have to vigilantly police the mouse cord b/c my current bog-standard Logitech mouse cord can be damaged in the blink of a bird’s eye. And yes, patching with duct tape can help but it’s a stopgap solution at best.
There are many types of mouse cord - simply plastic, corded, etc. Educate me a bird on their structural integrity please, and resistance to evolutionary honed keratin weaponry.
Having a mere cockatiel years ago, that had a tenth of the strength of your birds. No, nothing even remotely close. They could cut through thick braided cord with ease. Why not just go cordless if you aren’t pro level good?
Some sort of cable tubing or or wrap would make it harder for the birds, but they’ll still break through. A wireless mouse seems the simplest and best solution.
Maybe I need to consider cordless but when I tried cordless some years ago it felt like it was not very responsive. I’m not an FPS player but even for routine turn-based strategy and RPG stuff I found the cordless mouse not so good. Has that gotten better?
I don’t need “pro level performance” but I do want a mouse that responds fairly consistently. Also, I sometimes need the mouse to be very precise - using Tabletop Sim to position my Feat for Odin tiles JUST SO, for example.
I guess you could run it through a metal tube up to your mouse pad, and keep it covered when not in use. (Probably be awkward with the slack though.) Knowing a cockatoo though, it would make it its life mission to get to whatever was coming out of the that tube that its owner likes so much. They are persistent, inquisitive creatures.
Yeah, the more I think about this, given the persistence and creativity of parrots, plus their advanced Black Belts in Beak Fu, I’m thinking a material solution may be unavailable.
I’m going to look into wireless mice - but I do still have that question about both precision and responsiveness.
So I decided to give the Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless a try - Amazon had it for $40 with free 2 day shipping so what the heck.
I did some reading and comparing and that seems a reasonable fit for my tastes. Sounds like it has multiple options for connecting at different levels of responsiveness. I noticed it was briefly discussed in the mouse thread here but no one gave any detailed impressions that I could see. All the other options seemed too expensive or too “I AM A GAMING GAMER GUY!!” for my tastes. However, there were some Logitech Lightspeed mice that looked like decent options but I chose the Corsair. We’ll see how it goes.
It may be that the only way to defeat the parrot beak is with SCIENCE.
Recognizing that my opinions might not fit everybody…I’ve been using wireless trackballs (logitech M570) for more than 10 years. I vastly prefer them to any mouse I’ve tried. They take less of your desktop and minimize gamer’s wrist.
I believe moving a trackball with your fingers while a parrot is on your desk is a recipe for amputation. It’s shiny! And it moves! And there’s fingers in the way! Oh well, too bad about the fingers.
I use both a mouse and a trackball. The mouse is to the right of the keyboard, while the trackball sits to the left. I switch hands for different uses. Given how much time I spend sitting here, it’s helpful for avoiding wrist/ shoulder RSI’s.
As for the original question, some people spray super-bitter stuff on electrical cords to prevent dogs from chewing them. Maybe that might work for birds?
I have a Logitech G900 which I got on sale, but even at £75 it may still be too expensive for you. I can’t tell the difference between it and a corded mouse though. The only downside is the relatively short battery life. For my work laptop I use an MX Master 2, which is great, and has much longer battery life.
