Cloth toy safe?

[Calace]

So as we all know birds love to chew shirts! Ollie's favourite pastime is to chew the 'collar' of my husbands ratty old work shirts while perched on his shoulder. So my question is this: do you think it would be safe if I shredded (tore into strips) one of his old shirts and made a kind of long Pompom out of it as a toy? Obviously I would check it regularly for loose threads etc that would pose potential risk, but is there anything else that I should consider before doing this?

Edit: If I do make this toy, I think it would be one that I play with him with outside his cage, not one I leave hanging in his cage!

 

[Jumpingtadpoles]

I was planning on buying a hula hoop, and hitting up the thrift store for colourful old shirts to strip up and wrap and tie onto the hula hoop, leaving strips hanging so the bird could chew, shred, and preen

 

[Jumpingtadpoles]

Also, I know 'too owners that hang towels in cages so they can preen the towel, rather then over preen themselves

 

[BoomBoom]

Hi, Calace. Personally, I tend to shy away from putting anything cotton or fabric in Boomer's cage. I'm afraid of his claws getting caught in the material or the thread, and him panicking as a result while I'm away at work. The only exception I make is with his happy hut that's made of some kind of fuzzy material. I check those for lose threads regularly. If it's outside his cage, I would not worry since its supervised.

For preening toys, I buy ones with natural shreddable material that he can break free of. Something like this: http://www.northernparrots.com/images/products/medium/34165.jpg

Just my 2 cents

 

[GaryBV]

I would be very cautious about leaving anything like a chew toy made from shirt material in the cage, but if you are out with him that would be a different thing, but I'd never leave him alone with it. Also if it is part of the shirt it might be a good idea to hem the ends so that they are less likely to have loose threads and be a theat to either his feet, or his neck.

 

[MikeyTN]

I should of taken a picture of when I came home from work to find Malachai yanking the towel inside of the cage and shredded it and was all tangled up from the string. I had to hold him down and cut the string lose from his legs. This could of ended badly as there's no fabric materials around him anymore for him to shred.

 

[Betrisher]

I'm a quilter. One day, I was cutting strips to sash my latest quilt with. Madge was looking at me wistfully from the cage, so I gave her a few offcut strips of cotton fabric to play with. Within seconds, she had a thread of cotton wrapped firmly around her toe and was squawking wildly in her efforts to get it off! I was trying to grab her so I could cut the thread, but doing that with her beak going every which way, her wings flapping and my glasses falling off my nose was not an easy thing. In the end, I bellowed for my son, who came and snipped the thread with pointy embroidery scissors while I held Madge in my hands and she chewed earnestly on my fingers. There was blood everywhere, most of it mine!

I wouldn't recommend giving anything that frays to a bird to play with. I do use cotton perches and ropes because the Beaks don't chew them. Ever. They will chew a bit on sisal, but not enough to write home about and not to swallow, just to pull the threads out and drop them.

Interesting factoid: the name of any hairy or fibrous mass in an animal's stomach is a bezoar. A friend of mine had a child who pulled strands of her hair and then ate them. The child developed a bezoar and had to have it surgically removed. Eeuuuwwww!