New DIY Playgym

[lzver]

With my wonderful husband's handy work, we built a play gym for Lucy and Jessie this weekend. I've done a lot of research over the past month or so and everything is safe for the birds. The wood is all safe kinds of wood, used Wilton's food coloring to color the pieces and used childrens non-toxic glue.

We still need to add a food and water bowl and a few toys. But I didn't expect him to be done this weekend so I don't have any of that yet. We'll give it 24 hours for everything to set and maybe let both of them go on it tomorrow night for a few minutes after its been washed really well. We have it in their room tonight so they can at least get used to seeing i

[pchela]

That looks awesome! What did you use for the bases?

[lzver]

We used melamine (3/4" thick) as the base and the trim is made out of 1 x 2 pieces of poplar that my husband routered to give a design.

[Michael]

Very nice. Looks very professional. I wonder if having 3 bases will require more clean up?

Why do you need to add food bowls to it? I think you say your parrots are flighted, so can't they just fly back to their cage when they need some water or something? They don't need to be chewing food all day long. Even if they're on the playgym for 3 hours straight, they don't need food or water. If you're keeping them on it in a different room with door closed all day long, that's a different story then.

[lzver]

I never really considered not putting food/water bowls on the play gym. The purpose of building it is to give them a place of their own to hang out where ever we happen to be - living room, basement, etc. Their wings are not clipped, but they actually don't fly on a regular basis - only when spooked. I don't want to encourge them to fly from the basement, up the stairs and back to their cages for several reasons - the main reason being, I don't want them to get hurt.

If they both like it, I'll have my husband build another one. I had both birds out on it for just a few minutes last night and as I suspected, Jessie flew back to his cage because he's afraid of it and Lucy started checking it out and of course chewing on the wood ;o). I'll need to work with Jessie so he's not afraid of it.

I'm fully prepared to have to clean it on a regular basis. With the base being made out of melamine, I'm hoping it will be fairly easy to keep clean.

[Michael]

Well how long do you expect to keep them out on it? You shouldn't feel any guilt keeping a parrot away from food/water for a few hours (even as much as 6). They don't eat all day long in the wild and they don't need to.

My Senegal Parrot only drinks once or twice a day. There was one day I filled her water bottle with water but put it down to do something and left for work having forgotten to mount it on the cage. I came back maybe 8 hours later and felt terrible but the bird was fine, drank a little but nothing of any concern. I've had Kili on trips where I would only give her water from a bottle in morning/evening and leave her in carrier all day without food or water without any trouble either. So I've learned not to freak about it and as long as there is food/water twice a day in morning/evening it's fine. This is why when I bought the new tree for Cape Parrot, I asked to have the built in food bowl removed as it would only get in the way but never used.

[lzver]

They would never be on it for anymore than 2 - 3 hours at a time. So maybe you're right ... it would probably make a little bit less clean up required. They'll probably get treats while they're out anyways.

[pchela]

My stands don't have bowls but I do wrap up food in coffee filters etc and hide them around the tree stand for foraging opportunities. That might be an idea for you.

[Michael]

That's a much better idea than just putting it in a bowl. They get enough easy bowl food in the cage as it is. Are those coffee filters safe for them to chew? Do they end up swallowing them or getting it in their food?

[pchela]

As far as I've seen, they just rip a hole in the paper and then eat the food. The coffee filter provides something for them to hold onto while foraging... they still have to tear the paper to get the food instead of just having the food itself in their talons. I don't think they swallow any paper... they treat it just like they would a shell on a nut, but I guess there is no guarantee that tiny bits don't make it into their crops. It should be safe though as I got the idea from a well respected avian vet.