concrete perches- good or not so good?

[miss v]

I have a male budgie that is hard to handle. His nails are getting ridiculously long and I'm worried for him. Should I get the budgies a concrete perch, or will this hurt the bottom of their feet? Would having large diameter perches exercise their feet and prevent them form getting long again? My tiels have similar perches with no problem, but they spend lots of time on the ground- the budgies don't. How can I keep their feet healthy?

Miss V You can try the sand paper perch for the budgies. I have a couple of those cement perches and I still have to clip nails about every other month.

Donna :)

[christie99]

Sandpaper can cause problems with the bottoms of your bird's feet. No matter what you use, you will still have to trim your bird's nails. The concrete perches help some, but do not eliminate the need.

[Andreya]

I think a lot of it depends on the bird. I have concrete (Jungle Talk brand) perches for my fids and the Parrotlets use them and have never needed their nails trimmed. The Red Rumps however, their nails grow fast and I have had to have my male's (the female is younger) nails trimmed. I now know how to do it myself so it's less of a concern but I definitely noticed the difference without them. Another alternative are the calcium perches which as far as I can tell work just as well and gives them a little extra nutrition as well.

[SquirminSherman]

I have used both concrete and Sandy Perch brand as well as the calcium perches with Sherman a U2. He came to me with the concrete one, and incredibly overgrown nails. I changed him shortly thereafter to the sandy perch brand and have had no problems since. He did have a trim at the vets, but by now would have needed several more if the perch didn't help. I did learn that if you use the sandy perch, their feet cannot wrap all the way around for it to be effective...that's what the rep from the company said.

[imported_David]

I doubt that neither concrete or sand perches will hurt your budgie as long as there's also regular wood type perches in the cage. Most birds know when to go to rough perches. Their nails get uncomfortable. The worst perches are the slide on cardboard sand perches which loosen constantly.
For my greys I have natural tree bark perches which they use all the time and 2 concrete perches per cage. The same holds true with my quakers. I make my own concrete perches with Quik Rock. Many times, I find them perched on the concrete, especially when they go to sleep at night. I have one concrete attached to the door of each cage and all of them prefer sleeping all night long using the concrete perch on the inside of the door------Dave

[miss v]

Thanks all- Chester's nails were doing ok until recently (they stopped growing so fast after I got everyone a variety of larger natural perches). They are getting rather long and so it's off to the vet with him! I will ask the vet for her two cents on concrete perches.