How to make Pine safe for birds.

Nokota

New member
Jul 16, 2014
3
1
Many of us desire to make our own perches out of trees growing nearby, but the question of what is safe and what is not is always an issue. Pine is safe, but only when cured. Cured means the pitch has been removed. Pine pitch contains turpentine, a somewhat toxic substance used to remove oil paint from surfaces. It's more than somewhat toxic to parrots. Lumber workers cure their lumber by stacking it a certain way and leaving it for about four months to air dry. But we don't want to wait four months to use our perches. I decided to do an experiment.

If it can evaporate into the air, it can dissolve in water, right? So I stuck three pine sticks, all stripped of bark, in my swimming pool under the ladder for 24 hours.

The three sticks were all different ages. One was fairly fresh, one was extremely old and even had a little rot I had to scrape off, and the other was in between and still extremely sticky to the touch once the bark was removed because of the excess of pitch.

Success! Soaking in the swimming pool for 24 hours seemed to remove all the pitch from the greenest branch. I decided to proceed with the method I generally use for sterilizing branches for perches, and baked them all for an hour in the oven on 180 degrees. 180 degrees is the temperature at which no organism can live, but is well below the burning point of wood, thankfully.

However...

Upon removing the sticks from the oven, I found my supposedly clean branches covered with pitch! And not just the youngest branch, either, though that one had the most! All three of them had sticky spots.

It would appear that the baking process forced all the pitch left inside the branches to the surface. I've got them in the swimming pool right now to remove it.

If a second baking does not make the branches produce pitch again, then I believe I will have succeeded in finding a way to remove pitch from pine branches in about two days!

I will update this post with my findings after the second baking. Wish me luck! And I hope my findings are a help to all the other DIYers who love to make things for their parrots! Maybe when I am finished, if the experiment is successful, this can be a sticky?
 

Sterling1113

New member
Feb 15, 2014
1,189
3
Dallas area, Texas
I like the idea of curing wood in a matter of days! I've been talking about how to make my own perches and play stands on another thread. Only thing that worries me, though, is what is used in your pool? Is it chlorine? I worry that may be unsafe even after baking, however I'm no expert so I'm not sure. :eek:
 

Dinosrawr

New member
Aug 15, 2013
1,587
8
Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Parrots
Avery, a GCC born on March 5th, 2013 & Shiko, a blue IRN born on February 25th, 2014
Chlorine is fine, it's what bleach is after all :) It evaporates in the air and leaves no traces afterwards, you just have to be sure it's completely dry before giving it back.

It would be nice to find a way to cure pine quickly, I have so much everywhere that I avoid out of concern :(
 

igloo9201

New member
Aug 6, 2014
6
Media
2
0
Parrots
I'm a proud Junior Zookeeper working with a rainbow lorikeet, two B&Gs, one Calico Macaw, an African Grey, a Molluccan Cockatoo, a U2, two Major Mitchell's, and three Galahs.
Glad I found this. My mom and I got a pine branch yesterday and were wanting to make it a perch. Now I know that the sap is toxic!

When baking it in the oven, should you cover it or anything? Is it okay to bake it in the same oven that you usually bake food in?

Please let us know if the second bake has worked!
 

Romanticidexx

New member
Feb 11, 2023
1
0
Maryland, USA
Parrots
I have parakeets at the moment, specifically budgies, no parrots. I'm also an admin for a budgie/parakeet FB group "Parakeets - REAL advice, tips, help for budgie lovers ❤️".
For pine branches, I soak them in a tub of water (fully submerged) for 24-48hrs, & then strip the bark, & put them in the oven with foil underneath at 300 degrees for about 2-3hrs. This method tends to pull all or most of the pitch out of the pine wood, & I cut around the areas that might have a tiny bit left. The key is to strip the bark, because that's where a LOT of the pitch tends to be. After they're done, I'll take 100 & 220 sandpaper & gently sand them down into nice usable perches. Not too much though because you don't want the perches to be THAT smooth. Just enough to prevent splinters, but not smooth enough to cause bumblefoot.
 

DonnaBudgie

Supporting Member
Jan 24, 2023
3,213
3,961
Windham, Maine
Parrots
Budgies. Lotsa Budgies.
Many of us desire to make our own perches out of trees growing nearby, but the question of what is safe and what is not is always an issue. Pine is safe, but only when cured. Cured means the pitch has been removed. Pine pitch contains turpentine, a somewhat toxic substance used to remove oil paint from surfaces. It's more than somewhat toxic to parrots. Lumber workers cure their lumber by stacking it a certain way and leaving it for about four months to air dry. But we don't want to wait four months to use our perches. I decided to do an experiment.

If it can evaporate into the air, it can dissolve in water, right? So I stuck three pine sticks, all stripped of bark, in my swimming pool under the ladder for 24 hours.

The three sticks were all different ages. One was fairly fresh, one was extremely old and even had a little rot I had to scrape off, and the other was in between and still extremely sticky to the touch once the bark was removed because of the excess of pitch.

Success! Soaking in the swimming pool for 24 hours seemed to remove all the pitch from the greenest branch. I decided to proceed with the method I generally use for sterilizing branches for perches, and baked them all for an hour in the oven on 180 degrees. 180 degrees is the temperature at which no organism can live, but is well below the burning point of wood, thankfully.

However...

Upon removing the sticks from the oven, I found my supposedly clean branches covered with pitch! And not just the youngest branch, either, though that one had the most! All three of them had sticky spots.

It would appear that the baking process forced all the pitch left inside the branches to the surface. I've got them in the swimming pool right now to remove it.

If a second baking does not make the branches produce pitch again, then I believe I will have succeeded in finding a way to remove pitch from pine branches in about two days!

I will update this post with my findings after the second baking. Wish me luck! And I hope my findings are a help to all the other DIYers who love to make things for their parrots! Maybe when I am finished, if the experiment is successful, this can be a sticky?
Why not just get pine branches in the woods that fell some time ago and have cured naturally? Obviously you want to avoid branches found on a roadside but after a short walk into the woods you should find plenty of old (a season or two and free from bugs and rot) dead, dried branches.
 

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