What are your opinions about lava rocks? Safe or not?

[bustersbuddy]

I would like to get some opinions on the use of lava rocks as toys/beak trimmers. Buster has a piece of red lava rock she absolutely loves to chew on. She eats a lot of cuttlebone but her favorite "beak work" is done on the lava rock. She LOVES "Rock"! (Yes, we even have a name for it and she knows its name, too!) I read a post on another website that warned about the "DANGERS OF LAVA ROCK!!!" and that one or two birds have died from ingesting lava rock, the sources citing impaction of the intestines, crop, etc. To me, this particular site seemed very alarmist. Almost everything was harmful to your bird. It was filled with "NEVER do this" , "DON'T do that" and "THIS WILL KILL YOUR BIRD!" I've seen a number of sites like this and usually ignore most of the blanket statements. But, since Buster loves Rock so much and I want the best for her, I thought I had better come to the folks that know the most. So what are your thoughts? Please let me hear from you!

[tielfan]

My tiels have a toy that's sort of like this: http://www.animallovers.com/products.../jambolaya.htm only made for smaller birds. It's been in use for something like 15 years and has passed down from one generation of birds to the next. They play with it a lot, and what amazes me is that the WOOD is still mostly intact. As far as I can tell, the stones are completely intact and the birds are happy and healthy. So I'd say it's definitely safe for cockatiels, but I can't speak for birds with more powerful beaks.

I don't pay much attention to alarmists. They rarely know what they're talking about, but they get an ego boost from pretending to be an authority on something.

[bustersbuddy]

This toy is really similar to the first rock Buster had. She finally whittled that rock in half so we got the current Rock. Thanks for your advice!