Is balsa safe for birds? The wood that gives way first

Balsa is in many of our toys and it is the one people underestimate. It is a hardwood, botanically speaking, which surprises most people, because you can dent it with a thumbnail.

What is balsa?

Balsa comes from Ochroma pyramidale, a fast-growing tree of the tropical Americas. It grows quickly and is harvested young, which is part of why it is so light. The cell walls are thin and the spaces between them large, so most of a balsa block is air.

It is the lightest commercial hardwood in the world. Model aircraft are built from it for the same reason birds like it: enormous volume, almost no weight.

Is balsa safe for birds?

Untreated balsa is widely considered safe for birds and appears on most published lists of bird-safe woods. It is plain wood with nothing in it.

As with any wood, the question is what has been done to it since. Balsa sold for modelling is sometimes sealed, and offcuts from craft shops may have been treated. Plain, kiln-dried, unfinished balsa is the thing you want.

What to check before you buy

• Finish. Balsa should look and feel like raw wood. Any sheen means something has been applied.
• Glue. Laminated balsa sheets are held together with adhesive. Solid blocks are not.
• Splinters. Balsa breaks into soft flakes rather than sharp shards, but check edges on anything machine-cut.

Why we use it

Balsa sits between sola and the harder woods. Sola gives way immediately, beech barely gives at all, and balsa is the useful middle: a bird has to work slightly for it, and gets somewhere.

That makes it good for building confidence. A bird who has learned to destroy sola will often move to balsa next, and from there to something that takes real effort.

It also means balsa toys are consumable. A cockatoo will go through one quickly. That is not a defect, it is what a chewable toy is for, and it is worth knowing before you buy rather than after.

Which of our toys use balsa

• Mini Balsa Blocks, which are exactly what they sound like, and the simplest way to try it
• Sola Sandwich and Tongue Twister, balsa layered with sola and beech
• Cheerful Center, Super Sunrise v2 and Triple Threat
• Double Dangle, Mango's Favorite Toy and the All-In-One Starter Kit

If you are working out where your bird sits on the soft-to-hard scale, the blocks on their own will tell you within a day.