Safe wood & parts for making toys ???

[My Kiwi]

I have a very picky parrotlet. I have pretty much figured out what toys she will play with. They can't be too large or colorful. I want to make her some toys and maybe a play gym and am wondering if anyone can tell me what they use and where to buy it. I would appreciate it. Thank You !

[Alika]

I buy the wood for my toys at busybeaks.com. It is already cut into fun shapes, dyed with bird-safe dyes, and has holes cut into it. They make great foot toys, as well. This was a great option for me because I am constructionally challenged and I am in an apartment and don't have all the tools I need to cut the pieces myself.

There are others here who make toys from scratch who could give you better direction.

I made both of my playstands (well, once play stand and one T-stand) out of PVC pipe. I found it to be reasonably priced and easy to work with... again, being constructionally challenged, this was important to me.

My playstand design, which I call the bird tree, is primative and represents my first attempts at the whole idea, but it serves its purpose. It is basically a 'tree' with three 'branches'. On the trunk part, I hot glued pieces of towels to make it easier to scale. My cockatiel is the only one who takes advantage of this feature on a regular basis; the others prefer to stay put on the branch I put them on.

I put large eye hooks in various parts of the tree to hold toys. I did this by burning holes in the plastic with a saudering iron, then twisting them in was easy. That worked really well, and I'm pretty happen with the ingenuity of it :)

PVC pipe is smooth, which is bad for footies and hard to grip, so I sanded all three perches really well with a coarse sand paper. Someone with access to a sandblaster might have an easier time of roughening them up.

Later, I tightly wound the middle perch with sisal rope and hot glued it into place in several spots as I went. This made a great perching surface, but has been rejected by my senegal, who is scared to death of it... even a year later. But my amazon and tiel have adjusted to it well, and I believe it is both better on their feet and easier to grip.

I 'planted' the whole thing in a large planter with playsand. This sounds ridiculous, but it actually has worked out really well. The only really bad side effect is that it makes the whole thing very heavy, so it pretty much stays where it is... which is next to the computer. In a redesign, I would build a base out of more PVC.

I should probably add that I capped off all open ends, and glued them with PVC glue. To my horror, the glue was exposed, and I was naturally worried about it, so I got to spend extra time sanding away the extra dried glue. That took a long, long time. In a redesign, I would not glue the pipes together. I don't think it was necessary.

My T-stand is just what it sounds like. I wrapped it with sisal rope, too. If you make a T-stand, or any stand, make sure that the supporting pipe is nice and big (diameter). My T-stand pipe is too narrow, and makes it wobbly so I have to support it with other pieces of furniture.

You can get everything you need for these projects at a hardware store... well, except for the towels. The bird tree cost me less than $100 to build, and that includes buying a bunch of toys for it. The T-stand was something like $20-30.

Sorry for the long post. Hope that helps you out.

[My Kiwi]

Thank you soooo much Alika ....that helps !!! Now there are more ideas in my head. I am wondering though if there is somewhere I can buy "bird safe" wood and the straw looking stuff like in the toys at the store. I bought a perch today simply made of a circular wire with nuts attached all around and she is soooo scared of it ! Geeeeshhhh

[TooLover]

busybeaks.com is a great site. Also, if you are an e-bayer they have some awesome stuff there that you can buy; smartbirds.com is a good site as well.
We made all of our bird stands out of pvc and as Alika said, they are inexpensive, and work great! We have a plastic swimming pool under ours to catch the poop and excess food - makes it easy for me to keep clean.
Old Christmas tree stands, or patio umbrella stands are perfect bases for making play stands.

[My Kiwi]

Thank You Sooo Much ! Busybeaks had some of the things I was looking for. Great Prices Too !

[Nala]

I just got my first order of wood parts/toys from American Woodcrafters Supply Co. WWW.AWSC-ONLINE.COM I had a blast picking out all sorts of shapes and sizes. I got my girls popsicle sticks, clothespins, bowling pins, rolling pins, buttons, blocks and balls and on and on. Prices seem reasonable, and lots of shapes and sizes.

Now I am looking for info on bird-safe coloring. I have seen product sold as bird-safe coloring, "100% FDA tested and safe for human use". So I was wondering, why not just use regular food coloring? Does anyone have any info on this?

[jaimie]

I heard you just use kool-aid
:o)

[The Outlaw]

Koolaid is a poor dye and can encourage ingestion and impactation. Don't use it.

[Mr Five]

Trees and Bushes
Apple
Arbutus
Aspen
Beech
Birch
Cottonwood
Crabapple
Fir
Hawthorn
Larch
Norfolk Island Pine
Palms (areca, date, fan, lady, parlour)
Palms (howeia, kentia, phoenix, sago)
Pear
Poplar
Sequoia (Redwood)

ALMOND
APPLE
ASH
CITRUS (ANY)
DOGWOOD
ELM
EUCALYPTUS
GUAVA
MADRONA
MAGNOLIA
MANZANITA
NUT (EXCEPT CHESTNUT & OAK)
PAPAYA
PEAR
PINE
PRUNE
RIBBONWOOD
SASSAFRAS
THURLOW
VINE MAPLE
WILLOWS:(GOAT, ***** & WEEPING)

[Nala]

Originally Posted by The Outlaw

Koolaid is a poor dye and can encourage ingestion and impactation. Don't use it.

Wow, I am glad you told me that! Someone else, in addition to the post here, just told me to use KoodAid. Glad I didn't do it yet. Thanks!