Judy’s Halloween Toy

Judy's SweetPea

My friend, Judy Brown makes some of the coolest toys for her birds. She calls them “ghetto toys” because they are fairly simple, and she makes them out of common everyday items. Personally I think the birds enjoy these toys far more than many of the expensive store bought toys.
Her Quakers, Sweet Pea and Sprite, really loved this one. Sweet Pea likes to weave the strands through the bars of his cage.
Judy has kindly allowed me to share the directions for her most recent toy, I made a few for my birds and they just love them, they are so textural and chewable, which makes them irresistible. Try making a few and see if your birds  love them too.

Judy’s Instructions

These are the directions  for a Halloween toy I thought up last week. You can use anything you have on hand to make this simple toy and make endless variations.

I found some straws with a plastic sleeve of pumpkins over the straws. (Can be found in the ‘Seasonal’ section of some grocery stores or at dollar stores)
I pulled the pumpkins off the straws and cut the straws with scissors into several ‘beads’. For this, you can use any brightly colored drinking straws and any type of top with a hole in it, even wooden bead would work.

I cut a bright orange plastic needlepoint canvas into approximately 1”squares, also with household scissors. We call them “waffle squares”. You can get a canvas like this at any fabric or craft store.

I used curled raffia; it’s a long, natural fiber that is more round than the typical flat raffia, and can be found at craft stores. You could use any other bird safe fine twine,  like hemp or sisal. But I took five of those fibers about 1½’ to 2’ long and laid them out.

On each end, I put one or two straw beads, then a waffle square and tied a knot on the other side of the waffle square. I used about 5 of theses per toy, but you could use more or less as you choose.

Then I took another smaller piece of the fiber and bent it in half around the middle of the bundle. With the two ends of the smaller fiber together, I threaded it up into the sleeve of pumpkins.

When you pull the bundle of threads up through the sleeve of the pumpkins, this gives you your loop for hanging the toy.

I added a bit of shredding material on top to keep it from sliding back down into the pumpkin sleeve.

While I was out looking for the pumpkin straws that Judy used (which I found at the Dollar Tree) I also came across some cute little rubber monsters (at Target), and since my Ariel loves rubber duckies and friends, I used one in place of the pumpkin sleeve for a different twist on this toy.
 Happy Halloween!!

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