Bird toys

[Brittney]

Does anyone know if bird toys are safe? I'm too nervous to buy toys in the bird section since they never say what the wood is, other than the grapevines, they say those. They are so big and I love how interesting they are, I'm just not good at determining what woods look like, and I won’t purchase without it saying the wood. I know birds don’t eat the wood like chins do, and unsafe woods might be used, because the tag just says "natural wood". Just curious as to what others have to say about them.

I bought 3 of these today

http://www.petco.com/product/102739...t=LN_Shopping_BirdSupplies_Cockatiels_Perches

I haven't put them in just yet. Is grapevine safe?

 

[alli713]

In general, if the wood is safe for birds, it's safe for chins. I believe that the chin safe wood lists originated from bird safe wood lists.
So long as it doesn't have a bunch of plastic and cotton rope on it, I'm sure the toys are fine. I'd be inclined to buy just the ones with wood, or if it had other things on it, take them off. I just think that a lot of the bird toys at the pet stores are so expensive.

And yes, grapevine is perfectly safe!

 

[xcoronaangel]

Norally bird toys are safe just check what they use... aka no leather or plastic.
I sell bird toys for chinchillas, rabbits and degus on ebay. I always inspect toys before I selling them.

Normally if you hit eBay bird toys are cheeper there then in stores.

 

[PetProductsByNature]

I come from kind of a different perspective. We only have a bird, but chin owners make up the majoriy of our customers. We go to a lot of bird markets and have found that bird owners aren't nearly as cautious as chin owners when it comes to buying woods. Although all of our woods are marked as to their type, bird customers rarely pay any attention, just getting the sizes, shapes and barks they like the looks of. They seem to care more about whether the hardware is zinc-free and indestructible, which should be important to all, but...I'm not sure all toys in the big box pet stores are.
From my own research I have learned that there ARE woods that are safe for birds that are not safe for chins, (mesquite would be one example) so we use only the woods on the chin-safe list. As far as buying from pet stores, Krickett won't touch most of it. Yucca and Cholla in PetSmart and some bird toy suppliers are bleached to make them look nicer and it's gotta be a faster process than "real cleaning" in huge quantites...even though they are advertised as natural and I wouldn't want her chewing on bleached woods even if she would. Also, just another thought, for a large company to ship natural woods internationally, most are required to have a certificate of "fumigation".
I agree that doing an Ebay search for bird toys is a good idea. Many of the listings tell you what types of woods are on the toys and what type of hardware is included.
Just my opinions...

 

[AZChins]

You're right, they do treat the wood a lot to make it more acceptable. Not to mention that things tend to be made in China and who even knows what they do to the toy parts there.