foam tiles and conures

[inkspider]

so before I get my conure I will be moving into a different room of the house, this room has carpet that has stained over the years and im not particularly fond of. I am unable to replace the flooring entirely and was wondering if the foam puzzle piece floor mats were safe to have with a conure.

 

[fiddlejen]

Hopefully you don't plan for the conure to spend much time on the floor, so the biggest concern will be off-gassing.

(Allowing a small bird to walk around on the floor on a regular basis, is simply asking for a bad accident to occur. Added to that, with foam tiles, IF you encourage the bird to spend time on the floor, a conure will almost certainly get to work ripping up the foam.)

I don't know specifics with regard to specific foam flooring. That is, does it continue to off-gas, and for how long after installation, etc.

However, IF you do go ahead with this flooring, I have two big suggestions:

FIRST, and most important: Open all the Packaging and Remove all the packaging Far Away from the room where your birds will live. Preferably, OPEN the package OUTSide IF possible.

There can be a lot of "new carpet" / "new furniture/product" odor (aka fumes!) which seem to emanate from the item but Actually a large amount of those fumes are trapped in the Packaging. If you unwrap them inside the room, All that trapped off-gassing, will get into your room. If you can unwrap them outside, it will dissipate, and you will only need to wait for the actual, current off-gassing to air-out.


Second recommondation is just to make sure you do Allow Time for the flooring tiles to air out; some time, before putting them down; and, if possible, also some further time once the tiles are in, before putting the bird in the room.

An air filter can help with this. Really, it is advisable to invest in a good air filter anyway for your bird, if you are able.

 

[inkspider]

Luckily I would say my house has pretty goof filtration because of how many allergens my family deals with (there are several very dusty areas we are currently cleaning in the house and im allergic to dust but if im in another room im only dealing with after effects of interacting with the dust and not the dust anymore) I'm looking into any toxicity of the foam just in case but thank you so much for the input!

 

[SailBoat]

Excellent information provided above!!

There is a World of difference between dust /pollen and off-gassing and with few exceptions home systems are not designed to remove 'gasses' from the air. At best, they may stick to the filter media.

Foam Tiles are designed to sit on a flat /hard surface and Not Carpeting! In additions the the reasons provided in the other Post, your Conure(s) will likely begin chewing on the edges.