Cotton is dangerous?

[opalwings]

I had ordered two new toys for my new budgie; a cute fluffy Yarn like preening toy And also a cotton rope swing.
However I just found this website where they talk about how dangerous cotton material is and have many stories relating Tragic bird deaths From long term ingestion of the fibers over many years... the vets were cutting out huge balls of cotton from the crops etc... also broken legs, strangulations, even with close monitoring birds can ingest tiny fibers and over the years end up with an obstruction and die from it.
I will link... anyway I was horrified, everywhere I go online And in stores I see cotton Ropes and boings... it’s all about the boings... and the play gym I bought has cotton rope on it.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Are all these pet stores really selling instruments of bird destruction??? What’s going on??????? Has anyone else heard about this???
Needless to say my new budgie is not getting any cotton until I can figure it out- I’ve ordered sisal and jute to restring toys etc , at least for the time being.


https://parrotfunhouse.com/blogs/par...-toys-to-birds

[maxollie]

I totally agree with you. Use the materials you suggest. They will work fine, and it is not difficult to make our own toys at all!

[opalwings]

Ok, thank you so much!!

[boomer girl]

Yep, things like rope perches made out of cotton stings are one of the worst things to give them because if they swallow the stings it slowly impacts there crop and will kill them. I used hemp twine for all the toys in our birds cage and natural wood for all the perches.