Perch Toy

[DancingGreenBird]

I have plastic drawers full of wooden shapes, compressed paper rolls, cork, foot toys, leftover parts from dismantled toys. I had collected these over the years, and sometimes I would make toys and sometimes I would just doll out single items as foot toys to be chewed up. When we brought Ollie home in January, my husband decided to try his hand at toy making. He had never tried this before. When Elmo was sick in his last year, he only showed interest in his foot toys. He made a couple of standard looking toys and then he hit on the brilliant idea of making a perch toy. He has never seen one before (I do all the toy shopping) so he hit on this idea on his own (I am very proud). He took a wooden perch and etched four grooves into the top. Then he tied leather around those grooves so the leather would seat into the wood nicely and from the dangling leather he would fasten all kinds of parts. So all the toys hang below. Ollie will pull up the leather to get at the toys, chew them up and then drop them when he is bored. Regularly, I will go and tie new stuff on. Twice we've completely pulled everything off and rebuilt it when the leather got too ragged. I was messing with it last week putting new stuff on while Ollie was playing on his play gym. He would climb down and check out what I was doing every now and then. What is funny is when I finished, he rushed down from his play gym, CLIMBED INTO HIS CAGE, and started playing with the new toys on the perch toy. Ollie has never voluntarily climbed into his cage before. It is one of his favorite toys and even though the toys are below him on the perch, he NEVER poops on them! Here is a pic:

[Christy]

That's an awesome idea and what a great way to recycle the left overs! Alot of our left overs go to the Sun Conure who thinks they are the greatest! Don't think he knows he's getting his big sister's hand me downs!

[Jessalyn Eaton]

Aww Ollie! Are you proud of your new toy? Tell mom that it looks great!

[Michelle & Fids]

That is cool!!!