Feathered Family Play Stand/Gym Review
There are so many possible play stands to choose from, and when we are looking for the best for our parrots it cannot only be confusing, but frustrating. We at Feathered Family have decided to evaluate a number of stands in order to try to help others with their choices.
We have to say that these happen to be one of our very favorite stands. While our birds do not always stay put on them, they enjoy their time on the stand and they play very well. Chewing the wood seems to be half the fun of this stand, and we have had birds who were not known for chewing wood hanging upside down on bottlebrush in order to chew some particularly delicious looking spot!
The only drawback we have found with the bottlebrush is that it can be difficult to clean. The wood itself is very rough and we have to use a brush with stiff bristles in order to clean it. Our birds very rarely leave droppings on the wood, but they do leave food on it often. The upper platform has a raised lip around the edge, which keeps any debris inside the tray. This lip can make it frustrating to clean the tray fully, and we use a putty knife to scrape around the edge and make sure that no feces or food is stuck in the crack.
Another great wood stand. We have these in many sizes, and our birds seem to enjoy them no matter what size. They get chewed on often, and have plenty of eyehooks for hanging toys too. We do recommend you get a stand with two bowls attached, as it can be frustrating to only have one or none at all. The tray wipes up easily, and these stands take a great deal of abuse and keep on being great stands.
Drawbacks with these stands are small, mostly easily fixed things. As we mentioned, you do need two bowls, which is simple enough to specify when ordering. The wood edging the tray is natural wood, so you must clean it very well, but it is good for chewing also. The stands can be heavy, so we recommend you place them in one spot and don’t move them often, or you order the ones with wheels. We also have to use a putty knife around the tray edge with this stand, so we keep one in our cleaning kit. Also, the grapevine wood on some stands is hard to clean, again we must use a brush to scrub the food and droppings from the wood.
Unfortunately, these stands fall into our least favorite area. They are often slippery and birds with less than sure grip can fall on them. The tray area is hard to line properly without cutting the paper to fit, which can be frustrating. Cleaning this stand is often frustrating, and we’ve found that the only way to clean it properly is to disassemble it completely and run the “branches” through a dishwasher. In addition, we have noticed that large birds are often far too heavy for the large stand, bending the top “branches”, or even breaking the mount for the bolt that holds the top branch in place.
The bowls are rather nice, though we are not fond of where they are mounted, as the mount gets messy easily and must be cleaned often. We actually decided to disassemble this stand and use the rolling tray as a base for another stand instead.
This is complicated, as these stands can be wonderful if put together with creativity and forethought to bird safety. We do recommend that you glue your stand together, being sure to do it in a safe area where the fumes cannot harm your bird, as they can pop apart unexpectedly if not glued. We prefer to wrap our PVC stands with various safe rope materials, or with vet wrap in order to assure good grip. You can also dremmel the stand in order to create ridges for grip, but you must be 100% sure that no small splinters or flecks of PVC remain on the stand as they are not healthy for birds.
We believe that it takes practice to make homemade PVC stand that you and your bird with both enjoy. It can be time consuming, but also fun to create a wonderful new play area for your bird if you have the patience to do so.
We haven’t had an opportunity to try out the floor stand, so please keep in mind this review is only of the hanging gym.
First, let us say it can be a very long wait for your “custom made gym” to arrive. This can be very frustrating, but you are warned of this when you order. These gyms are made out of PVC that has been bent and twisted by use of high heat. The gym looks very neat when it arrives, and they package it in a fun way. The gym is painted with some kind of brown material (we cant figure out what) in order to make it look like wood. Actually, it most resembles dark rawhide. The PVC ends do not hold up well to chewing and within a week we had spots that showed white rather than the painted color because of the chewing.
The cross bar which hangs from the ceiling hook is very stable, though the chain is inappropriate for large toed birds and needs to be replaced for safety’s sake. The gym itself swings madly from side to side as it hangs from the crossbar, and it takes birds a good deal of time to get used to the movement. Even with birds used to the movement there is no way to prevent the water bowl from spilling when the bird moves on the stand, which can be very messy. Slipping the bowls in and out of their slots can be hard; it took us a week to learn to do it with less than two people at a time. Not all birds will be able to get used to the swinging/rocking movement of this gym, and we recommend that you really know your bird before considering ordering one.
Please note that this list is based on our evaluation of the play stands we have used at this time. Others may experience other results with the stands. This is our opinion; please feel free to try these play stands or gyms for yourself. We will add more stands as we try them here at Feathered Family, doing our best to keep you up to date with the stands we believe are the highest quality.