Wrapping perches with cotton twine for sores

Rosie's feet are wearing down, and she had been getting pressure sores on her bad foot/leg before I took her safety pumice perch out. The vet recommended I wrap her manzanita perches with cotton twine, she said that manzanita tends to wear feet down, especially older manzanita which gets a greasy texture as it ages. Well... My manzanita perches are like 25 years old and do have a greasier texture than newer manzanita perches no matter how much I clean them.

To wrap perches in cotton twine you'll first want to tie the twine to one end of the perch, then with constant tension(as much as you can without breaking the twine) carefully wrap the twine around the branch while occasional compressing the rows together to keep them tight. It's very important that this is not loose, if it is loose toes can get caught and your bird could be badly injured. I recommend wearing gloves if you have them, my hands were sore & raw by the time I finished wrapping the second perch and I really regretted not wearing any. It took me a little over 3 hours to wrap both perches.





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Rosie's worn feet

Poor Rosie, hope she starts getting better soon. And thanks for posting, this should be a useful guide if, god forbid, this was to happen to one of my Cockatoos.

Luke252 said:

Poor Rosie, hope she starts getting better soon. And thanks for posting, this should be a useful guide if, god forbid, this was to happen to one of my Cockatoos.

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I bet you'll be fine, you sound like a fantastic parront!
When I adopted Rosie she spent 5 years with no toys in a small cage, all she did was sit on those two manzanita perches all day and her feet were already worn down when I got her. She also has that bad foot which makes her foot sit completely wrong on a perch.

As long as people check their birds feet and don't let the feet wear down to the point of Rosie's they won't have to be so careful about pressure sores and the skin being so thin.

That perch has a too uniformed diameter which is real bad for sore pressure points. And wrapping with twine can be dangerous to birds so I don't know why your vet recommended it (their claws get tangled up in it and they can swallow it and end up with crop impaction).

Also, manzanita perches tend to be hard on the impact (the wood is too hard and there is no 'give' or bounce to them) so I suggest you take tree branches of different sizes and wrap them with paper towels (this is what I do when I get a bird with sore pressure points -as well as provide soft platforms for them to stand on- and it works like a charm)