Do any of your guys give your birds tree branches to chew?

[jroyal]

So I've been doing some work at my grandparents place and they have a young maple tree growing in there yard that they want gone. The branches are still flexible. I was thinking of chopping off a good bit of it and giving it to my birds to chew on. I know for sure that they've never used pesticides or anything, although they to fertilize the lawn but not very often (if that means anything).

Do any of you give your birds branches to chew? Like with leaves on?

 

[Mare Miller]

I live in California and my bird has chewed on every branch in the area, without issues but not maple. There is a site that shows safe woods for birds but I don't know it, at the moment. Google is awesome for these type of questions, though!

 

[Betrisher]

I give my birds Australian eucalyptus, bottle brush, brush box, casuarina and melaleuca to chew on. And yep: leaves, fruits and all! Bottle brush is their favourite because it's a fragmented kind of bark and comes off in little plates. Melaleuca looks like it should be fun, but it's papery and the birds soon lost interest. ??? I'm lucky in that there's lots and lots of access to good branches where I live, so interesting perches are not a problem. I just cut the branch to length and screw in tiny hooks to fix it to the cage bars.

My husband got the brilliant idea of cutting up pinewood pallets for the birds. First, he cut ½" slices off the end-grain and they went down very well indeed, although they only lasted a few minutes. Just recently, he's cut out 3" rounds (with a large hole-saw) and drilled centre holes so I can string the pieces to hang. Again, we're lucky to have a local business that throws out lots of pallets each week. Word of caution: make sure you only use untreated pinewood pallets, *not* painted or coated ones!

We always save our chopsticks after a take-away meal (nice man down the Angsara Wok always gives us a fistful for free) and I use those to make kebabs or to skewer half a banana on. Then, the birds chomp the chopsticks.

 

[Kalidasa]

I give hibiscus branches

 

[Pajarita]

My birds perches are all branches (and I do use maple) and they need to be changed quite often because they chew them.

 

[Luke252]

Yeah same here, I use large natural branches as perches, plus I give them Australian Eucalyptus as branches to chew on. My guys are Australian Cockatoos, so that's something they would chew on in the wild, and luckily, seeming as I'am in Australia, finding these branches is not difficult. Another good Australian plant to use, especially for Lorikeets, is Grevillea.

 

[coltfire]

here in Australia just about all our tree's are good for our birds and i always use tree branches for perches