Using corks as chew toys

[halogen]

Is this safe? I know cork is a safe wood for birds, but will chewing the cleaned corks apart create any kind of harmful dust or fragments that are indigestible should Arya swallow one? (I would be checking for this, of course)

 

[Birdman666]

My birds have been using old wine corks for shredder toys for over a decade...

Anything is an ingestion hazard if they ingest it. Mine only tear them to bits and throw them on the floor.

That's why god made shop vacs.

 

[MomtoPercy]

I'm with Birdman. Percy loves corks and never ingests them - just rips them. I just cut off the bit that touched the wine, wash them and dry in a low oven and then it's ready. My sis and her hubby are serious wine drinkers so I usually have a good supply of corks. I also got a bunch of unused ones from a vineyard during a visit to the area where our best wines are grown.

 

[Kalidasa]

The wine I like has those rubberish corks, I'm nervous about using them because they're not real cork, just some synthetic material.

 

[Kiwibird]

Lot's of people give their birds corks to chew up. If we drank, we probably would too. I would probably stay away from the plastic-y kind, but the real corks shouldn't be an issue even if they do accidentally ingest a piece.

 

[Birdman666]

I give them the plastic type too... Doesn't matter. It's a foot toy.

It's usually entertaining for less than five minutes. Very short shelf life on this one.

 

[Mike17]

I now have trouble getting corks, almost all Oz wines are screw-cap. Our plum-head especially likes corks, and when I do have a bottle of red with a cork open and re-corked, it'll fly to the top of the bottle and shred what it can. Plumheads are very good fliers- Jade will hover like a hummingbird trying to land on a cork. The few I do get, are saved for the birds.

 

[Betrisher]

I made a cork toy for the Beaks just yesterday and it's already no more than a pile of sawdust on the floor. There were eight corks strung on a kebab stick and now there are zero corks strung anywhere. LOL! I give the Beaks pretty much anything they want to chew on. They chew for the chewing, not the eating. I don't know about other birds, but Barney and Madge just chew: they don't swallow. So, yeah, I'd be stringing any kind of cork, even the rubber or plastic ones, for them to play with.

 

[halogen]

Thanks for all your input, I think ill ad this to my list of toy materials! Thanks again