Tuesday, September 8, 2009

How to make parrot toys for beginners

This post is about how to make parrot toys for beginners. Making parrot toys is both a fun exercise as well as being able to save you money from buying commercial parrot toys. If you own a parrot, you know how fast they go through the parrot toys. If you need to keep on buying the toys as replacement, you are going to spend quite a large sum of money. So, instead of doing that, I will cover some tips of how to make parrot toys for beginners.

First thing first, you must make parrot toys that are suitable for your parrots. Size is one consideration. For large parrots like african grey parrots, make a parrot toy that is more resistant as these large birds have powerful beaks that can destroy a parrot toy if it is small and fragile. Also, do consider the size of your parrot cage. Don't make a parrot toy that is too big to fit into your cage. You can make use of the cage's feature to get ideas on how to make parrot toys.

As you are making parrot toys, remember the basic principles. Parrots like to chew on toys and play with them, usually to it’s total destruction; an untouched parrot toy is not being enjoyed and might as well be removed.

Make parrot toys with wood
Parrots like to poke and peak at wood so a wood based parrot toy is most ideal for your pet. When choosing wooden materials to make your parrot toys, ensure that you buy bird safe products. This is because your parrots may ingest some the wood that it is chewing on. The important point is never to buy painted or lacquered wood parts (certain paints/lacquers contain zinc and other harmful chemicals/additives) as the chemicals can be deadly to your birds. Some safe woods are: Pine, Maple, Apple, Arbutus, Aspen, Beech, Birch, Cactus, Cottonwood, Crabapple, Dogwood, Elm, Hawthorn, Larch, Manzanita, Ash, Poplar, Willow, Ribbonwood, Grapevine wood. Warning: Never use pressure treated woods or Oak.

Make parrot toys with paper
Paper is a relatively easy and abundant material to work with. In fact, using paper to make parrot toys is the most easy way for beginners. First , you will need paper towel rolls. They are the easiest to work with. What you can do next is to remove the glue and cut them into small slices. Then, punch a hole into the slides so that they can be string together with a rope. The great thing about this parrot toy is that you can have the option of putting lots of interesting materials between the paper towels to create variety for your parrot toys. For example, you can add ice cream sticks.

Another simple paper parrot toy you can make is to create paper based baskets. You can hide dried fruits and veggies in the toys so that your parrots will have a pleasant surprise when they are poking at the paper basket. Paper is really a flexible material. What you can do with it is entirely dependent on your imagination.

Make parrot toys with rope
Rope is quite critical for making parrot toys. They are useful material to hang stuff and you will probably need a few of these to help you make some good parrot toys. When buying the materials for making parrot toys, you can choose from several different types of rope, of which solid braided rope and twisted rope are the most popular. Ensure that whichever model you choose, the materials are 100% cotton as it is safe for parrots when they incidentally digest it. Any alternatives are not considered bird safe. When making rope parrot toys, make sure all the frayed ends are trimmed so that your bird does not get caught.

Here is one idea for a rope based parrot toy. Find a rope and cut it to 36 inch lengths. You need to them knot them at the top. After which, you can insert a quick link between the lengths of the material, just below the knot. Starting at the quick link, tightly tied about six inches of the three lengths of material. Finally, make a strong knot at the end of the braid to complete the parrot toy.

Doing this creates a good structure to hang the rest of the stuff. Find some large plastic blocks and tied to the three lengths of material that are left hanging. You then need to knot the ends off tightly so that your parrot will not untie the knot and loosen the plastic blocks.

Make parrot toys with leather
The final materials I recommend for making parrot toys is leather. Leather is not as common as the other materials so you might need to shop around and find a place that has the right type of leather. There are various widths and thickness of vegetable tanned leather strips. Be sure to purchase what is most suitable for your bird and the size of the hole that is drilled. The important thing is to ensure the leather has not been treated with any chemicals or dyes to prevent poisoning if you parrot accidentally swollen it.

These are all I have for you. Now, it is your turn to go and have making parrot toys.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Large Parrot Toys

Large parrot toys are for bigger parrots like Eclectus parrots, African Grey parrots or even Macaw parrots. Compared to smaller parrots, these home made large parrot toys are easier to create if you know the tricks. This post will show you simple tips that uses simple parrot toy parts to create home made large parrot toys.


Before going into the tips for making larger parrot toys, you might wonder why we need to do so. Well, for one, the prices of parrot toys are not cheap. If we can learn to make parrot toys, we can save quite a bit of money.


Home make parrot toys are really easy. You don't need to have any skills in art and craft. As long as you can cut and tie things, you are good to go in terms of making parrot toys. All you need is a designated place to accumulate new parrot toy parts as well as scissors, and some stringing rope. If you can't find these parts for free, then you can set aside a budgeted sum to buy new parrot toy parts each month from the likes of Walmart or the Dollar Store or online parrot toy parts vendors.These costs are actually much cheaper than if you were to buy commercial parrots parrots.


When you are buying parrot toy parts, one useful criertia you might consider is its re-usability . Is the base reusable? Are the parts durable enough to be washed and recycled? Recycling toy parts is a big dollar stretcher. Although wooden parts can be expected to be chewed up, there are other parts that may be re-useable on the toy.


When making home-made toys for parrots, do keep in mind the safety rules. Some of these basic rules includes: (i) keeping cotton and sisal ropes short so that your parrots don't get their legs tangled in the string, (ii) matching the size of the parts to the birds as you want large parrot toys for large birds. Watch your birds play with toy parts to see if they are treating any part in an unsafe manner. Avoid using parts with metal, hooked shapes, and shaggy parts.Use blunt scissors for safety in case your bird happened on them someday. I like pinking sheers for toy making. Pinking sheers are blunt on ends and sharp enough to trim ropes.


You can set aside a certain time each week just for making parrot toys. You can do it while watching tv in case you are feeling bored. Also, you should make a couple of parrot toys at one time keep some spare toys for rainy days.


The first tip is to find some parrot toy parts that matches the size of the bird. One such good part is the cotton mop head replacements at your grocery or Walmart. What we need to do is to remove any metal and and hang it at the top of the cage. Because such type of cotton shreds easily, it makes a good parrot toy for large parrots.


Another idea for large parrot toys is stuffed brown paper bag. Firstly, do ensure all metal pieces including staples are removed. After which, you can fill the large brown bag with shredded paper, parrot toy parts, and nuts. Your large parrots will have fun shredding the bag and all the stuff inside.


The last tip might not apply to all parrot owners. You need to first check whether your large parrot cage has any chains that can be used to hold parrot toys. If your large parrot cage has such chains, what you can do is then string parrot toy parts and cotton cloth to this chain. The safest place to hang a parrot's toy is on or near the sides of the cage. If a foot is caught, then the bird can hold onto the bars until help arrives.


Some large birds have mechanical minds and love knots. Single knots between beads or toy parts will challenge the bird and increase the toy's life.

Monday, August 10, 2009

African Grey Parrot Toys

This article gives ideas on cheap African Grey Parrot Toys. Commercial parrot toys are african grey parrots are rather expensive. They typically costs about $20-$30 dollars and have to replaced within a few months Rather than paying for these money, here are some ideas on using everyday materials to create affordable african grey parrot toys.

Background on african grey parrots
African Grey Parrots are a species of parrot native to West and Central Africa. Of the two main varieties of African Grey, the Congo African Grey Parrot has a stronger ability to imitate speech, and is thus a more popular pet. The Timneh African Grey is similar in appearance, but has a horn-colored beak, maroon tail, and is slightly smaller.


#Idea 1: Using cardboard boxes as chewing materials to create african grey parrot toys. What you can do is to create a house using the cardboard so that it becomes a nice shelter for the parrot. Your parrot can then hop around the cardboard and be able to chew on them as well. It is an excellent African Grey Parrot Toy.

#Idea 2: Explore baby toys and see if they can be reused as parrot toys. One good example is the brightly colored plastic oval baby links. These are easy to use, one simply twists the plastic link near the side where the opening is and then slides the opening over the bar of the cage or onto the toy. These links are not safe parrot toys for small sized birds but for African Greys, they can be an affordable parrot toys.

#Idea 3: Go to your local super discount stores and explore! Look around and see if there are any cheap items that can be used as afican grey parrot toys. One suggestion is to buy Cornhusk whiskbrooms, which are two dollars or less. Each whiskbroom has a metal ring on its handle allowing it to hang easily in the African Grey’s cage using the plastic oval links. The materials in the brooms are a wonderful destruction chew parrot toy for African Grey Parrot, especially Greys that are feather pickers.

#Idea 4: Use your imagination and create african grey parrot toys from normal day items such as newspapers or brightly coloured paper. These paper stock can make good chewing parrot toys. You can create rings with it around the cage or you can design strips that slides in between the cage parrots. What kind of african grey parrot toys can be created is based entirely on your creativity.

If you have more ideas, do leave some comments on making affordable african grey parrot toys.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Cheap parrot toys

Continuing the theme of cheap parrot toys, this article will talk more about ways you can get cheap parrot toys. In particular, I will teach you some online tricks to source for the cheapest parrot toys to buy. So, if you are looking to buy a parrot toy on a budget, I suggest you take some time to read through this article.

The most simple thing is to go to Google and type in this: cheap parrot toys. On the first result page, you can quickly see which links are the most relevant for you. Take some time to go through this list. I can assure you that you can find some cheap parrot toys within that list.

Next up, go to search.twitter.com. Again, key in the same words:cheap parrot toys into the search box. From the results, you can see people posting short posts (<160 words) around the words you have type in. Again, scan the results to see if you can pick up any good bargains. Just follow the links to see if they have any good deals on parrot toys.

Finally, go to Amazon and search for cheap parrot toys. Amazon typically offers very good deals on the products they carry. You never know what kind of good bargains you might come across. So, don't miss this opportunity in your search for cheap parrot toys. Just go there and search around.

Beyond websites, you can also look in forums, especially pet forums. From what I have seen, many pet forums have a buy and sell section. If you manage to find one that talks about parrots, there is a high chance that you can get a used or second hand parrot toys for a good price. The drawback is that forums are typically messy and current members are not always welcoming to new chaps.

These are the ways that you can use to source for good bargains. If you know of any other site, please drop a note here to let everyone know how they can buy cheap parrot toys.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Parrot Toys on budget

Parrot toys can exert a heavy toll on your wallet. This is because the best parrot toys tend to be the ones that the parrots can take apart. If that is the case, it means you need to constantly find new toys to replace those that have destroyed. In the long run, you might incur heavy costs for always replenishing the parrot toys.

Today's article will show you how you can mimimise these costs by getting good parrot toys for cheap. In particular, I will list a few ideas that will help to supplement the more expensive commercial toys. They are meant to be complementary, not replacement for the more durable toys you can purchase from various online stores.

One of the cheapest alternates I have found that can serve as a good parrot toy is the ice cream spoons. These spoons typically come from ice cream cups. They are fantastic as toys since they are easily breakable. Your parrots can poke or beak at them for all they want. In addition, they are also very clean as most of these spoons are wrapped in plastic covers.


If you can't find these ice cream spoons, you can always for similar alternatives as parrot toys. A good place to look would be the Handicraft store that is in your neighborhood. These places sell wooden sticks in bulk and they are very inexpensive. However, if you buy these sticks, do ensure they are well sanitized before giving them as toys to your parrots.


Another place to look for budget parrot toys is at the kids section. Since baby toys can already safe for infants, they must be safe for parrots as well. Just drop by any Department Store and look for items that can be used as parrot toy. Things that can break apart and are shiny and colourful makes great toys for parrots. Just make sure they are of the correct size for your parrots.


Beyond the department store, you also can buy these baby toys at discount outlets such as the the Salvation Army or other garage sales. At these places, prices are going cheap, which make them ideal places for you to save money. The same rules applies here when choosing parrot toys from infant toys. On a side not, please santitize/wash these second hand goods well before passing them on to your Pets. You want to avoid cases where these goods might carry bacteria that will be harmful to your parrots.


These are the few ideas that can help you save money when it comes to purchasing toys for your parrots. Just use your creativity and you might come up with even more alternatives to buying parrot toys.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Parrot Toys: material guide

Selecting parrot toys can be a challenge. There is quite a variety of toys available ranging from bullet proof plastic to shreddable piƱatas. You have to find the ones that are safe for your birds. How to select the right parrot toy is an art but here is a guide to help you make your selection. In particular, it will provide information on what kind of materials are best for parrot toys.

Parrots, by nature, loves to fly around and look for food. They are also clever creatures that need constant entertainment to keep them from being bored. Hence, when parrots become domesticated, they need similar stimulation and this is where parrot toys come in. While many bird owners might think parrot toys are just playthings but they are actually quite essential to parrots. However, not all toys are safe so you need to choose the right one to avoid causing harm and damage to your birds.

Metal materials: It is a well known fact that parrots like shiny materials. However, not all metals are suitable as parrot toys. Specifically, pick only those where the metal is either nickel- plated or stainless steel. Avoid other metals such Zinc and copper plated metal parts because they are dangerous to parrots and when ingested, can result in death.

Leather materials: Besides metal, you must note the type of leather used in the parrot toys. In particular, the leather must be vegetable tanned and free of chemicals. This is because parrots like to chew on stuff more than anything else. They can literally spend hours just pecking and choking at the leather. If you are not careful, the parrots can accidental swallow some of the leather, which might contain chemicals that cause illness and possibly death to your birds. Also, do not keep leather based parrot toys that have been soiled by the parrots. This is because bacteria can grow on the soiled leather and cause illness to the birds when swallow.

Wood Materials: You might think that wood is a safe material but this is where you are wrong. There are several types of wood that are unsafe for parrots such as oak. It is better to choose parrot toys that are made of pine, poplar, java or manzanita as these wood types are safe for chewing.

Rope materials: Many parrot toys have rope materials. When choosing such toys, keep in mind to trim your parrots' toe nails as this will avoid your birds from getting injured as a result of the nails getting trap in the role. Choose only cotton or sisal ropes because they have not been chemically treated and hence will be safe for parrots chewing on them.

In summary, try to avoid any chemical treated materials. In fact, it is recommended to buy toys which are labeled “100% Organic.” So, keep them in mind when shopping for your parrot toys.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Parrot Toys: selection guide

Welcome to parrot toys. In this article, I will offer some general information about buying parrot toys. On the surface, buying parrot toys may seem easy but there are lots of subtle factors you need to consider. For example, you may need to consider the size of the parrot toys with regards to your cage. Should you buy large parrot toys or small parrot toys?

Why buy parrot toys?
As parrot owners, we love our pets and we want to see them be happy. Playing is one activity which we need to facilitate. When parrots are bored, they behave very badly. They will scream, they will bite and they may even turn on themselves and begin to pluck their feathers or thrash about the cage.

This is where parrot toys come into play. By selecting the right toys, we can create a safe and engaging environment for our parrots to play in. The toys can relieve the parrots of their boredom. However, if you buy the wrong parrot toys, it can result in boredom and worse – injury and death.

What you need to consider when buying parrot toys?

Size of the cage: This factor is quite common sense but crucial. Please don't buy toys that is too big for your parrots' cage as this will limit their movement within the cage.

Size of the parrot: Larger parrots tend to have large beaks and need particularly durable toys. We don't want to get toys that will break easily. The danger is that your parrots may start to chew on those broken parts and may die of eating the wrong stuff or get poisoned from the chemicals in the toys. .

Characteristics of your parrots: Observe your parrots and see what they normally like to do. For example, if your parrot like to talk or make a lot of sounds, you might want to choose parrot toys that can make noises when being poked at. Another example could be that your parrot likes to chew stuff. In that case, it is better to buy toys that offer beaking and chewing opportunities.
Finally, your parrot might like to climb, which means you should get parrot toys that facilitate climbing. Finding a toy that suits your parrot's characteristic will give you greater mileage for your purchase.

Bright colour toys: Look for toys which are bright and colorful. Parrots tend to like colours so toys which are brightly coloured will attract them

Look out for safe parrot toys: When buying toys, it is worth to take note of some safety guidelines that ensure the toys do not pose a risk of injury to your pet. For example, ensure no bells which your parrot can catch their beak or no split rings or key rings as I have seen many cases where parrots legs are caught in such things.

In summary, toys are part of your parrot's well being as they relieve them of boredom. When buying the toys, do pay attention to some of the factors discussed above. At the end of the day, well built parrot toys can provide hours of fun to your pet so do take the time to select the correct ones.

Parrot Toys: Introduction

There are many different types of parrot toys for many different types of parrots. The hard thing is trying to choose the right toys for your parrot. There are for example:

african grey parrot toys
stainless steel parrot toys
paarot foot toys
talking parent toys

and even

home made parrent toys

So, with so much variety and (possibly confusion), I want to start a blog that will provide useful tips and guides on all things related to parrot toys. Be they large parrot toys or parrot toys parts, I will cover them all in the blog.

To start things off, let take a look at why toys are important to parrots.

We must first recognised that parrots are creatures that survive purely off attention. The more attention you show your parrot, the happier and healthy he or she is going to be. However you can't always be there to spend time with your parrot and that's why parrot toys can come in nice and handy. You want the toys to take your place while you are away.

Giving your parrot something to do while you are away can help keep your parrot from becoming bored and in fact is proven to increase the life expectancy of your bird. Whether it be a bell, mirror or a ball or wool, any kind of object that your parrot is able to interact with, will do marvels for its overall general health.