Story Bird: Chloe

Our pionus parrot Chloe loved her cotton rope covered boing and slept on  it every night.  She also would swing from it, take her food to it to  eat, and play with toys on it.  We were very careful to keep any stray  threads clipped or burned off, and all of our birds' nails are kept  short and smooth.  (We dremel.)  Figuring we were taking all precautions  against injury, and not wanted to deprive Chloe of her boing she loved  so much, we thought we were safe.

 Luckily we were home and nearby the first time we heard Chloe call to us  in a "voice" that was clearly different than her usual calls.  We were  more curious than worried until we got to her cage and saw her hung up  on a cotton loop that had come loose from the cotton rope.  Any of our other birds would have panicked and quite possibly caused themselved injury but Chloe is a calm little trooper who seems to think things through rather than react strongly to things.  She stayed calm while we snipped the thread and checked her nail for damage, but we didn't even find the rough area we expected would have caused the problem.  We took the boing out and snipped the thread and attributed it to a freak accident, vowing to be even more careful in the future.

It was less than a week later that the incident was repeated.  And Chloe called to us in that same "voice", and we freed her.  Still no rough area on her nail, it was a perfectly smooth nail that had become wrapped in a string from the cotton rope that HAD been string-free just that morning when we uncovered her and checked it.

Needless to say, we realized we were flirting with serious injury, and removed all cotton rope perches and boings from all of our birds' cages. Thank God that it was Chloe who taught us this lesson.  Any of our other birds would certainly have injured themselves trying to get themselves free.