New Rainbow Lorikeet

[Pajarita]

Yes, you need to wash the branches as well as bake them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes but I still would not use lemon tree wood. If it's poisonous to other animals, why risk it when there are hundreds of other woods that you know for a fact are safe?

[Gabriel]

Most people have told me to just wash the branches with hot water, and let them dry in the sun at most. Sometimes, just give the cutting as it is if you know for a fact that no insecticide for pesticide has been used on the tree.

[Wolf]

No amount of scrubbing will remove all of any pesticide or fungicide that is used on the tree as it soaks in. fertilizers are also deep in the wood as they travel up through the root system. Heating the wood will also have very little beneficial effect on these chemicals, but the reason for heating the wood is to destroy mites and burrowing insects and their eggs and larvae which are deep enough in the wood to survive washing.

[Gabriel]

I'm sorry if I am being stubborn ( I believe I am... my friends always say that ), just so much conflicting information so I'm not sure which side to choose.

[Gabriel]

So Wolf, you are saying that trees given inorganic fertilizer are unsafe for birds? Also, I'm going to cut small pieces of my bottlebrush and grevillea tree for my lorikeet, and since I bought them as small potted plants not too long ago ( about a foot high, 1/4 inch diameter). I believe these smaller branches don't need as much of a clean than the larger branches, and perhaps I might just give my bird the cutting as is?

[Pajarita]

I'm sorry if I am being stubborn ( I believe I am... my friends always say that ), just so much conflicting information so I'm not sure which side to choose.

Well, if been stubborn means asking until one is satisfied with the answer, I am stubborn, too

There IS conflicting information all over when it comes to birds and that's why I always tell people not to take anybody's word for anything, not even mine (just because it's written on the net or in a book, it does NOT mean it's correct) and to do their own research (but this doesn't mean ask somebody else on a birdsite or blindly following the advice of the self-nominated experts, it means going to scientific sources). You have people who have been doing the same thing for many years, are convinced it's right and insist on it - and then you have people like me who are always questioning, doing research and changing/tweaking things all the time. But, when it comes to 'iffy' things (conflicting or incomplete info), my motto is: When in doubt, don't do it.

[Wolf]

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that I don't trust non organic fertilizers and so I don't use them in my garden. If I don't want to eat this, I don't want my birds to eat it either. It is much better to be safe than sorry.

[Gabriel]

On a completely different topic, I have some newly purchased, unused coffee spoons and a honey dipper. Would they would be suitable to use as toys for my bird? Also, the honey dipper has some glue where the knob at the end is attached to the stick, but I am assuming it's safe as it's used for food.

[Wolf]

I would remove any glue that I could see. Just because a thing is safe for humans does not mean that it is safe for a bird, they have a very different system than a human or other mammal, so please learn now to assume nothing before it get you into trouble and your bird pays for it.

[liz]

When I find wooden spoons on sale I buy them for Myrtle. They get the same lemon water bath as the branches I bring in.
My soil seems to be rich enough that I don't fertilize my trees and don't us insecticides. I wash them because a wild bird might have landed on them.