Dear Parrots magazine,
Toy warning
Hi, I just wanted to let other parrot owners know of a toy called “Bell Carousel”, retailing for £3.49, and to bring to the attention of all parrot owners the possible dangers of small bells on parrot toys, be cautious, we didn’t think anything bad would happen but it did.
We bought one for our conure, he loved the toy and has a thing for bells but, unfortunately he got the ringer of the bell stuck in his mouth, which cut into the top of his beak. It was well and truly stuck, and thought it might be a dash to the vet but, luckily, my husband was able to dislodge it with a pair of jewellery pliers, which took him 10 minutes.Our Conure was quite stressed, and we were very stressed. It took a couple of days for him to recover, but he has now picked up again and is back to talking and squawking, which is a pleasant sound to our ears after a couple of days of him just giving us squeaks and little chuckles.
We didn’t realize this toy would hurt him. The ringer in the bell looked like it was made of just flat tin and proved to be a dangerous thing for a parrot’s beak. I would imagine any other bell with this kind of ringer might be just as dangerous. We shall be vetting his toys a lot more carefully from now on. The damage could have been a lot worse than a slight cut to his beak - we were lucky!
We have removed all his bells from his other toys, which hasn’t pleased him much, and we are going to replace them with ‘cat bells’, which we are hoping may be a good solution.
Sandra and Ian (by email).