Is bamboo safe for birds? The grass that behaves like wood

Bamboo is not wood. It is a grass, and it fails in a completely different way from everything else we use, which is precisely why it is in the toy box.

What is bamboo?

Bamboo is a giant grass. It grows as a hollow tube with solid walls at intervals, and it is among the fastest-growing plants on earth, which is why it is harvested so readily and regrows without replanting.

Because it is a grass, its fibres run in long parallel lines with nothing crossing them. Wood has grain going in several directions. Bamboo essentially has one.

Is bamboo safe for birds?

Untreated, natural bamboo is widely considered safe for birds and appears on the standard published lists.

The complication is that most bamboo sold is not raw bamboo. Garden canes are frequently treated against mould, kitchenware is often lacquered or glued from strips, and bamboo sold for crafts may be bleached or dyed. Any of those is a reason to leave it out of the cage.

What to check before you buy

• Garden canes. Do not repurpose them. They are commonly treated, and there is no way to tell by looking.
• Lamination. Bamboo boards and utensils are strips glued together. Solid bamboo is a single tube.
• Splitting. Bamboo splits into long slivers with fine edges. Fine for chewing, worth a look before you hang it.

Why we use it

That one-direction grain is the whole appeal. A bird working on bamboo gets long strips peeling away, which is a very different reward from the flakes sola produces or the dents beech allows.

It is also hard for its weight, which makes it useful in woven forms. A bamboo weave can be tight enough to resist a determined beak while staying light enough to swing.

Which of our toys use bamboo

• Finger Trap, which is woven bamboo and nothing else, so the material speaks for itself
• Super Sunrise v2, where it joins balsa, sola, beech and willow

The finger trap is the honest introduction. It is the classic woven puzzle shape, and how quickly your bird unpicks it tells you a good deal about what else they will enjoy.