Is leather safe for birds? Only one kind is

Leather is in more of our toys than any other material, and it is the one that most deserves a question from you. If you have gone looking for natural, plastic-free toys, leather is a reasonable thing to raise an eyebrow at. Here is the honest answer.

Why leather at all?

Because nothing else does the job. Leather is strong in a way plant fibre is not, it holds a knot without fraying into strands, and it flexes rather than snapping. In a toy it is usually the thing carrying the weight: the strap everything else is threaded onto.

A bird can also chew it slowly without destroying the toy in one go, which is the opposite of how sola behaves and is why the two are so often paired.

Is leather safe for birds?

This depends entirely on how it was tanned, and the difference is not cosmetic.

Vegetable tanned leather is cured using tannins drawn from bark and other plant matter. It is the older, slower method, it takes weeks rather than hours, and it is the only kind that avian sources consider appropriate for bird toys.

Chrome tanned leather is cured using chromium salts, frequently alongside formaldehyde. It is faster and cheaper, it accounts for the substantial majority of leather made today, and it is consistently described as toxic to birds.

Because chrome tanning dominates the industry, the safe assumption with any unlabelled leather is that it is the wrong kind. That is why the standard advice is never to hand a bird an old belt, shoe or handbag. Those are almost certainly chrome tanned, and they may also be dyed and finished on top of that.

What to check before you buy

• Ask the tanning method outright. A seller using vegetable tanned leather will say so, because it costs them more. Vagueness is an answer in itself.
• Colour. Vegetable tanned leather is a natural tan that darkens with age and handling. Black, brightly dyed or suspiciously uniform leather warrants the question.
• Household leather. Do not repurpose it. There is no way to tell by looking, and the odds are against you.

Ours is vegetable tanned. We buy from more than one supplier, and that is the standard every one of them has to meet. This article asks you to demand a straight answer on tanning, so it would be poor form not to give one.

What it is like to chew

Leather is the slow burn in a toy. It softens where a bird works at it, takes on a chewed, ragged edge, and keeps going long after the softer parts have been reduced to litter.

That makes it a good marker of how a toy is being used. If the sola has gone and the leather is untouched, your bird is a shredder. If the leather is chewed soft and the sola is intact, you have a chewer, and the toys that will hold their attention are different ones.

Which of our toys use leather

• Sola Skewer v2, which are leather and sola only
• Sola Sandwich, Tongue Twister and Cheerful Center
• Star Struck, Super Sunrise v2 and Triple Threat
• Double Dangle, Mango's Favorite Toy and the All-In-One Starter Kit