Bird toys are damned expensive. Totally cool, but made to be destroyed, and so there’s this sort of double edged sword to putting a new toy in their cages. Like, “Ooh, great! They love that one, they…oh, geez. Dead already.”

vs. “Ooh, dammit. Did I just spend that money for nothing? Totally not interested in it…but at least it’ll last awhile, I suppose…”

Except for one thing – the bamboo!

It was one of the first things to go in when we first started the garden, not realizing that the stuff is indestructible and will do its best to overrun everything it can. I don’t have a picture from when it was planted, but at only about 3 feet tall and in a 1 gallon container it looked innocent enough.

It’s now almost as tall as the house and has to constantly be whacked back, because it’s impervious- bugs don’t eat it, the cold doesn’t touch it, and after it rains you can practically sit back and watch it grow with the naked eye:

I don’t know if you can get an idea of the depth here, but there’s a ton of the stuff.

Luckily the parrots have decided they love it- I’ll cut a couple of canes and criss-cross them through the bars. The boys’ll go to their work, stripping and breaking them down, covering their cages in shredded little leaves.

It’s kind of hard to get pictures of the action, but here’s Pratch hanging down from his swing to get at it:

Honestly, he usually stands right on the canes to strip them, but he had a little a little Wile E. Coyote-style accident the day before. Taking a tumble after snapping the branch he’d so recently been standing on made him a little more wary the following day.

Jack loves it too, but of course had to get nosy when the camera came out:

He actually has it somewhat easier, being smaller, lighter and (sorry, Pratch!) more agile, he climbs and hangs all over the stuff- it’s a completely free jungle gym.

Proving that I am totally insane, I briefly considered buying another of those tiny, innocuous containers of the stuff at the nursery, thinking I could leave it in its pot between the parrot cages. They could strip stuff at their leisure, Pratchett could have a screen between himself and the hated Jack, and the bamboo would be contained and unable to spread.

Luckily I came to my senses, which, contrary to popular belief actually does happen once in awhile. But if you’re looking for a low cost, high yield parrot toy, this one fits the bill! Or beak. Or talon…