Birdie craft month!

March is Create a Craft Month!  Yay!  If you are like me and enjoy making crafts, you don’t need a special month for permission to make fun things!  But if you aren’t normally a crafter, I will attempt to persuade you with my easy and fun crafts this month! 

 Our first birdie craft is a TP goodie kabob!  I cut a toilet paper (or paper towel) tube into three sections and put a slit in the top and bottom of each section so I could string them together.  I used a long stainless steel birdie kabob to string our toy together, but you can also use a long bird-safe leather strip, or natural twine or a bird-safe chain. 

 

Then gather all sorts of things that can be strung – I used veggies that I could poke a hole through (snap peas, greens, grapes, apples, etc), cheerios, dried tortellini pasta, and some toy pieces from broken bird toys.  Begin by putting one tube piece onto your skewer, but don’t push it all the way through the second hole.  Add some other goodies to the skewer so they end up in between the two sides of the tube.  That way your bird has to work harder to get those goodies out!  Then put the skewer (or twine) through the second hole.  Add the next two tube pieces and other goodies in the same way.

 

 

I also spread a thin layer of peanut butter on the inside of one of the tube pieces and pressed a seed mixture into the peanut butter to get it to stick.  To finish it off, I put a paper “ribbon” on the top – do NOT use regular ribbon, as it will easily shred and your bird can become tangled in it very quickly – and I stuffed some shredded paper into the holes of the tube pieces.  Voila!

Then hang it in your bird’s cage or play area and enjoy watching her have lots of birdie fun!!  Birds love to pick things apart and destroy them.  You can feel good that you are giving your bird something she likes to do, and you didn’t spend much money on a toy that wasn’t going to last too long anyway!

 

If you are using anything flexible to make your kabob (leather, twine, or chain), do not leave your bird unattended with the toy.  Always watch her when she’s playing with it and remove it as she tears it apart.  Eventually all that will be left is the string or chain and it will be long enough that your bird could become entangled in it while she plays.  Be on the safe side! 

If you use a stainless kabob, you can leave it in your bird’s cage until she’s finished picking it apart, and then you can use the kabob to make more craft toys!  These are available in various pet supply stores and online bird supply sites.  They are well worth the money, as they have many  uses!