10-month-old Senegal question

[deeboo21]

Hi! I have a 10-month-old Senegal ("Gherkin"). I have a sweater that is designated as HER sweater because she enjoys destroying the zipper and pulling at all the loose strings on it (it's an old sweater). I find a lot of the zipper teeth lying around my house because she enjoys pulling each one off. However it recently occurred to me, 'I've been assuming that she would know that my sweater and the zipper on my sweater is NOT food, but what if she actually swallowed some of the zipper teeth because she thought they were food?" Is this a legitimate concern I should have or are birds, even as young as 10-months, smart enough to be able to differentiate between food and not food?

[Michael]

It's just a bird toy. And no, you shouldn't let the bird chew anything with zippers cause it could result in zinc poisoning from the metal.

[GreenWing]

It's just a bird toy. And no, you shouldn't let the bird chew anything with zippers cause it could result in zinc poisoning from the metal.

+1

Tiki goes for zippers, too, as well as buttons. I am a cardigan fiend but a designated bird-sweatshirt is better to wear in my experience as there's nothing to yank off.

[Pricey_boy]

I don't think birds are actually able to swallow solids I think it's just the juice and very small bits of the food that they consume

[friend2parrots]

i would be extra careful in your situation, and provide a different kind of chewing opportunity for your bird altogether than zippers for the following reason: in additn to the metal toxicity issue michael raised, there may be sharp edges on the metal zipper teeth, and when parrots get obsessed with an object they run their fleshy (hence potential to get scraped, injured or bleed) tongues over it.

maybe a good idea would be to toss that sweater, and find another sweater that you can sew some fun things onto, that you know are safe?

all the best with your