Birds, perches, toys: safe & harmful perch wood

For, cockatoos, parrots, parakeets, cockatiels, conures, quakers, finches, budgies, African grey parrots, macaws, canaries. Our Our 2 most visited pages are this one for birds, and SequoiaSempervirens. Copyright 2004 - 2009 by M. D. Vaden ~ Image at right: Gizmo, one of our green cheek Conures.

Safe & harmful woods lists for pet birds and perches: trees or woody plants for bird toys and perches in bird cages or flight cages. A popular page for pet birds: finches to budgies & parrots to cockatoos - updated January 1, 2010.

• How To Make Bird Perches

Also, see Making Bird Perches. For starters: when selecting a cage, look at the biggest you can afford, then maybe double it. It will be a home. Overcome a small cage price tag. When we doubled or tripled cage size for our birds, improved behavior was immediate. A few cubic feet separate a bird cage home from just a mere confine.

Lists below indicate wood to use for bird perches, or avoid. This perch wood list assumes perches are clean of fruit and leaves. Most info refers to wood in it's natural state with bark. I compiled information from avian vets and reliable resources, then refined that with my arborist background. The unsafe list has plants potentially dangerous to birds. No tender plants are listed, but some shrubs and vines with firm stems that could be improvised as perches are included. Pine in the safe list refers to branches, not lumber. Beware of residue on stems. Residue that may be overlooked includes moss control products that splash off roofs, sprays for holiday season foliage, decks, weeds , etc.. Avoid sides of a highway or railroad since right-of-ways can be blasted for weed control.

What you see, is what we are aware of. If you knowsomething we don't, please send a note. Also, plants we see wild birds on should not all be considered safe for pet birds. And wood that is bad for a few birds may well be considered bad for all birds - “All for One, and One for All” Some difference of opinion was found. Apple for example. Sources like Gillian Willis, say apple is safe: others say it may be harmful. I put it in the safe list due to Gillian Willis' expertise and my opinion that insecticide was the culprit. Elm is on safe wood list. But in many cities, elms are are treated. Maybe refrain from elm, because there is an abundance of other wood that is pesticide free. Call the urban forestry department to find out if street canopy is sprayed. If your yard is maintained by a company, ask if any products are applied.

Lumber wood information Pressure injected wood: don’t use it for birds: perches, toys or structures. Also, if you find lumber, do you know what contacted it? It's like an unbroken chain of possession for evidence. If you left lumber in a shed that several people use and haven’t been there for a year, how do you know what may have spilled? What kind of dust settled? Most light pine lumber in stores is not coated with anything. But ask anyway. Pre-cut stakes, such as those used for surveying, may have been coated due to the need to remain in the ground. We can’t be certain 100% of the time, but every piece of information brings us nearer 100% accuracy. A square edge perch is not a good. You could remove square edges, and round wood is better. Natural branches are the best because the diameter differs from small to large, allowing birds feet to stretch and contract.

Aromatic Substances Refer to other bird sites for aromatic info. But I'm leaving this comment about Teflon. Switch from Teflon pans to something like stainless steel or cast iron. Teflon pans over-heating, can emit substances deadly to birds. We try to keep perfume, aromatic scents and colognes to an absolute minimum at our home.

Check Plant Names For our lists, or others, check common names to know the genus, scientific name and common name. For example, Douglas fir is not a fir. Western cedar is not a cedar.

Balsa Wood This is our birds favorite to play with. Most sources indicate that balsa is safe for birds. I contacted avian veterinarians in Oregon and California, and got the same feedback - that balsa wood is fine. You won’t want balsa for a perch. A cockatiel can chew through balsa in minutes.

Cleaning Wood One philosophy says clean bird perch wood before it’s used by soaking for an hour or two in tub of water with a cap of household bleach. Then rinse the wood in clean water. Another says Chlorine bleach may cause an occasional sickness or fatality. Maybe due to too strong of a solution. The second philosophy may use mild soap and water solution followed by rinsing with clean water. Both viewpoints agree about allowing wood to dry thoroughly, including exposed to direct sunlight. Oven drying needs to be hot enough to kill microbes, but cool enough to avoid combustion.

Alder is not Alder Buckthorn - The 2 alders One person emailed a concern about a substance Cascara sagrada acting as laxative. Its made from bark of Buckthorn with a common name Alder Buckthorn. Its not an Alder or Alnus. Buckthorn is Rhamnus purshiana. To my knowledge, Alnus has no Cascara sagrada. Red Alder On a USDA Forest Service Pacific NW lumber page, was a footnote for red alder "Toxicity: can cause dermatitis". Red alder is not the only alder we have in Oregon. There is also Alnus rhombifolia called white alder. A source about white alder for use by Ohlone Indians, said they used it for diarrhea. My conclusion: avoid Re Alder.

Note: January, 1, 2010, I read from Univ. of B.C. that Rhamnus purshiana is now called Frangula purshiana. Apparently something that has gone back and forth previously in the past couple of centuries.

Birch The following comments are a PARAPHRASE from Gillian Willis - author - with clarification:

Birch is Betula species. LEAVES & BARK contain salicylates and a few substances ... . The low concentration ... Birch should be considered safe for natural wood perches. The seeds inside the cones are a special goodie safe for birds to eat. (end of paraphrase) Think: Automobile fumes can be damaging. We don't want to be enclosed where the fumes are trapped. But walking down the street where those fumes are in the air at low concentrations, we feel safe to breath. As noted, Birch should be considered safe and the risk of leaving bark is inconsequential.

Cherry Some sources debate about cherry wood being bad to pet birds, for a lack of substantial confirmed cases - although confirmed cases of problems for a few dogs and horses is apparent. Some folks lean toward using cherry wood, but not the bark, under the premise that the chemicals are primarily in the cambium - layer under the bark. Do you know what that layer is? Do you see what I'm getting at here? When there are an abundance of sure safe woods, why use one that has bark with potential bad stuff in it? Suppose there are no confirmed cases of dead birds from cherry. If cherry turns out to be a subtle problem, would you want your bird to be the first confirmed case? I suspect there are cases not documented. There must be hundreds of birds dying each year due to real causes that we don't know about.

Driftwood Driftwood is not recommended for a few reasons: 1. There is no certainty for the average person about the tree genus. 2. The ocean water environment contains organisms not to mention every kind of animal waste in addition to residue from ships. It is an uncertain environment. 3. Driftwood can have high salt content. Imagine all the crud that embeds into that wood.

Larch or Dawn Redwood - Larch is in the safe wood list. In case you did not know it, Larch is a deciduous conifer. It looses it's needles in winter. The needles are attached in little clusters on pegs like little tufts. There is another tree Dawn Redwood which is also a deciduous conifer. It's needles are attached to the twigs individually and somewhat two-ranked on either side of the twig. Initially, new spring growth looks like little tufts, but these elongate into tiny mini-twigs lined with ranks of individual needles. Dawn Redwood is not on the list above. It's genus is Metasequoia (sp. glyptostroboides). Avoid using Dawn Redwood - feel free to use limbs from Larch (Larix).

Maple Originally, this page only listed two maple trees: vine maple as safe, and red maple as potentially harmful. I've included "maple" in the safe list now, but with this condition: remove the bark. It may not be absolutely neccessary, but its the only way that I'll suggest most of that tree genus. From what I've read, the bark of many maple trees, like vine maple or Japanese maple, etc., is fine. Meaning, the bark in itself is not deemed a problem. But red maple (Acer rubrum) can harbor a fungus. Inhalation of exuded residue may be harmful. Maple wood - in general - should be safe for natural wood bird perches once bark is removed. One source wrote that "red maple" is bad for horses, not really specifying why. Currently, I'd use almost any maple branch for a bird toy or perch..

Pine We read an article about Pine and Cedar containing compounds that can cause lung or sinus problems. But the article was about bedding like shavings put in bottoms of animal cages; more common for hampsters and other pets; rarely for parrots or cockatiels. When we listed pine above, that meant as perch wood which this page is geared for. Also be certain that the pine for bird perches is dry pine that aged for as much as a year or two. Otherwise the pitch in the pine will be an awful thing for bird feathers.

Sumac - Rhus One sumac on this page is Staghorn Sumac - a safe tree. And the genus is Rhus. Its fruit berries have been clean washed and made into a good lemonade when sweetened. Native American Indians even mixed its leaves and fruit with tobacco for smoking. A broad range of plants may be called sumac, some safe, some not. Some species in the genus Rhus are potent and can also cause severe skin irritation to some people. Other species like Rhus typhina are not bad. Most naught species have axillary panicles and smooth fruits. The okay species have upright, dense, conical drupe type fruits, covered with crimson hairs.

Bird Related Links

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