wood... just wood

[steptoe91(tozie)]

so ollie has decided he loves to chew wood....and my knuckles <snicker>. so i got some wood and other parts from ca birdnerds a while back. made some toys. some were pretty neat with lots of hanging parts here and there and everywhere. what does ollie like? the one that took me 5 minutes. its a single piece of 1/4in sisal rope with 5 knots tied in it. between each knot is a 3 in long by 1/4 in thick piece of soft pine from birdnerds. ollie looooves that toy!     he will happily reduce it to toothpicks til every piece is dismantled. so every day i replace the wood for him before i let him out. well, i was down to 6 pieces of wood and went to order some last friday.    the horror! they were closed til monday!! so i found some pieces on some old toys and managed to get through the weekend. monday i ordered more. just wood. no fancy plastic pieces, no cute wood shapes, no colored twine. just wood. and wow! it was here wednesday! so here i am, spent $50 and have enough soft pine for ollie and balsa for marley to last til christmas. they are just so cute. and it's just like a kid. i can spend $100 in fancy petsolutions toys that last 3 weeks or $50 in plain wood that lasts 6 weeks! and the crazy fids like the cheap wood better! lol! and skittles is a lazy chewer, he wont chew the hard wood. he only chews the soft pine or balsa wood! lol! unfortunately, if i let him, he'll wipe out a whole delivery in one sitting! so he gets a few soft pine, a few balsa, and a few hard wood. brat.
so my last delivery i got 144 of those finger traps that birdnerds has. marley loves them. they're one of his favs. i string several pieces of sisal rope with them and he just goes to town. well, jess's boyfriend walked over and picked up the bag of fingertraps and says "so what do you do with a bunch of fingertraps besides annoy over a hundred little asian kids?"  and then proceeds to get himself stuck in one!  the boy is not all there, i guess you can tell. <grin>
but anyway, i just wanted to brag at how wonderful ca birdnerds is and how much the fids love the "simple" toys.

[Sondra]

ummmmmmmmm, not to burst your happy bubble, but you can get FREE untreated wood at Lowes and Home Depot just by asking them to save you the scrap wood pieces. Just explain to them that you have birds and they do thru a LOT of wood QUICKLY and that you'll be by to pick them up at a certain time and day. Just don't be late, or skip a day.

[steptoe91(tozie)]

all they have is hard pine (like 2x4 type wood) and ours sells the scraps. nothing for free around here. tried it. and then there's the fact that the closest lowes or home depot is over an hour away...one way. the local lumber yard charges even more for scraps than the lowes does. its actually cheaper to just buy a 2x4 and cut it myself...which i've done.   but while it makes great platforms and swings and such, they chewed on the wood a little but nowhere near as well as the softer pine like ya get at birdnerds.  i do still have some 2x4's that i've cut down and use it for some toys but the other wood is chewed much more than the harder wood. i even have dye to color it. easter egg dye. thanks for the thought tho. <grin>

[Sondra]

Dang girl, I tried!!   

That soft wood wouldn't last 5 minutes here! Even our Tiels like wood! LOL!! Henry goes through wood quicker than I can make toys, but that's good cuz it keeps their beaks in shape.

[Ditty]

haha i was gonna say the same Sondra!  home Depot here is keeping warped pine here for me and charging me but like $2 for a 2x4, so ummm yeah I take it

I am finally finding more that HW likes.  He liked the rope net for instance, all that is left is about 4 inches.   Seriously! 

[steptoe91(tozie)]

  oh ditty you poor woman! skittles' rope is still very much intact. he mostly expends his chewing energy on nutshells. i looked up earlier cause he was making this awful cracking noise on the ceiling hook with his beak! i was like    was that your beak?!!! and a nutshell fell down! he's taking the shells and chewing them up and when he gets to the tiny pieces that even he cant break he puts it against the cage or ceiling hook and breaks it against the metal! little snot! he spends much of his energy climbing, hanging, and flapping. its the littler ones that do most of the wood chewing around here. if it was skittles doing it all, i'd be broke in about a week! lol!
the 2x4's around here are pretty cheap, i paid $2.75 for the last 12 foot one i got. untreated of course. so i still use them, its just too hard for the little birds to want anything to do with them. even twiggy, my whittle queen <snicker>, gave up on her 2x4 piece.

but thanks for the thoughts ya'll. 

[steptoe91(tozie)]

ollie is happily chewing his wood this morning. i put all new pieces on his toys and he's just tickled pink. <grin> what a sweetie. and the bottom of marley's cage looks like the floor of a lumbermill! lol! he's such a mess. silly bird.