What was the one thing you "wouldn't" buy again for your birds?

[Monica]

The 'foot toy', I've heard contains metal inside of it... the ones with the metal spiral, a bird could get their head or a foot or even wing stuck inside.... read somewhere that it did, and if the owner wasn't home at the time, the bird could have gotten injured... and it's something that happened TWICE before the toy was removed.

I have one too... but I choose to not use it...

[jessica313]

enough said..u have just convinced me not to use it anymore either.

[raddaughter]

I don't like to buy from Petco/Petsmart unless I absolutly have to. I only buy the litter and that's it. As for other pet stores, I will buy depending on the care of their birds. One store here is great, they only have a few birds and take excellent care of them and carry veyr nice stuff. However, there is a bird specialty store right down the road from them who I do not like...

I enjoy making Harley's toys. I buy supplies from bird fairs and have found those are the toys she enjoys the most.

What will I never buy again? For Harley, toys with bells. She destroys the bell as soon as I put it in there. She breaks off the little hanging thing leaving a sharp piece of metal. Never again. For toys that do I bells, I will either not buy of remove the bell, depending if the toy is worth it. I just won't take the risk, she hates bells. I also won't put in boings of rope perches for her, she goes through them like mad, leaving my with rope. I have to wonder if this is partly because the rope isn't tight enough. I also can't buy plastic balls with bells. Never doing that again. Bought one at the bird fair, it not has a giant hole from where she wanted to get the bell out. Oh well, she's a macaw, what would I expect? Hehe 8)

[Izzy2006]

i decided to buy a new treat for Izzy 2 weeks ago and he didnt ebven eat 1.of course they were round and were "Wild Harvest" flavor.He like tropical Honey,and some other flavors.The bvrand of this bird treat is...."Harvest Bites".I even bought Cockatiel formula!

[Perroquet]

well this isn't dangerous or anything but i wouldn't buy one for my birds after this...
I was babysitting a friends Sun conure and Alexandrine and she put a green calcium perch in their cage. What a mess! The alex destroyed it in a week and the green stuff was EVERYWHERE! Even the birds ended up a powdery green colour.
I just stick to clean white cuttlefish now I can collect for free any time.

[Xavier]

Oh geeze... i have a green calcium foot perch in Indy's cage. Out it comes.

[Bonesy]

Nothing beats wandering around hardware stores picking up bits for your bird & going home & spending the weekend building something. :)

It amazes me some of the utter useless crud some people buy for their birds in shops. Half of it says "heavy duty" and I know any larger parrot I've had in my care would easily annihilate it in 5 minutes flat.

Hell my last macaw's favourite toy was a strip of sisal with various size loo rolls strung on it for her to rip up! She ignored the swings, the shiney toys. Nope, only her rolls.

She also enjoyed the long kitchen roll tubes rolled in either honey or home-made peanut butter (for less sugar & additives) and rolled in her seeds. She'd spend hours gently picking all the seeds off & licking the honey or peanut butter, then enjoy tearing the tubes apart for a few hours.

I bake my own bird cookies as well (even sell them too, as i make them organically) and it's amazing the amount of people who never really thought of making these things themselves. Healthier, safer, cheaper & much more rewarding :)

The only time I will buy from a pet shop is when my Budgie mikko starts wearing out his blue mouse toy. Little blue fabric mouse with nylon whiskers, googly eyes & a red tail with a bell on. It was the cats, however, he took a shine to it & dragged it back to his cage & has ever since never let it out of his sight! So as soon as the tail starts getting frayed or the whiskers bent from too much preening then I just get another, replace it while he isnt looking & chuck the rest.

Though I'm taking up tailoring with my partner so I will probably be able to make my own of those too later! :D