Dear Parrots magazine,
Natural is best
I have an African Grey and have always used natural perches in his cage, although he spends most of his time sitting on top of it. When I first put the perches in they were from a neighbour’s apple tree, which were fitted in position complete with bark. That was about five years ago and what he did first of all was to strip all the bark off, which gave him hours of pleasure and although he has chewed some chunks out of this perch, it has been his favourite all this time. Well for some time, he has been having a real go and actually chewed through it when I heard this crashing from his cage as he fell off it when it broke.
I have since found another neighbour down the road who was pruning their tree and managed to get a couple of branches that made super perches. To start with he wouldn’t go near them and just clung to the side of the cage, but it wasn’t that long before all the bark was removed and hopefully it will be there for at least another five years.
Sandra Smith, by email