this is a play gym that i made for manhattan... i made the frame from the instructions that michelle posted... http://www.quakerparrots.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11858 Thanks michelle! mannie loves it! instead of using a rope ladder though i used gauged wire and strung plastic beads on it and 4 inch wooden dowels. you can bend and mold the wire into differnt shapes... like a hill or waves. i also added a piece of dogwood for climbing.





these are pictures of another playgym that i made. the curled rope is made of the gauged wire and cotton rope. its just like those cotton perches that can be molded. the toy hanging from the middle is mad of popcicles and beads... its very simple... just poke holes in the center of the popcicle stics, string the popcicle sticks on hemp rope with a bead between each one... you can add a bell to the end or anything.



i've also made other toys...
straws... just cut several straws, each into pieces of four, string on hemp rope and add a bead at the end (on the play gym)
leather... i tied a few strands of untreated leather together and mannie just loves to chew on it.

these are the things that i use most when i'm making toys...
hemp rope
guaged wire
beads
bells
cotton (rope or you can rip up a white T-shirt as long as its 100% cotton)
natural tree branches


hope these ideas will help some of you!

This is very very nice! How much do you think it cost you to make this?

Remember to use Stainless steel hardware (screws/bolts/ and such) as metal parts to all toys. Everything else contains metals that can and almost always do cause heavy metal poisoning. Zinc included!

Yes they are more expensive a lot but worth it in the long term. You don't ever want to watch your bird go through Chelation therapy to rid the body of toxins. It is a horrible expeince for them. Please keep it safe.

If you have any questions PM me.

Looks like fun, thanks for the ideas.

Christal, Sunshine and Lolly

umm.... everything for the playgym... not including the toy supplies... i believ it was around 20 or 25 dollars...
for the other things (rope, beads, wire, hemp, ect.) i went to michael's, the craft store, and spent about 20 dollars, but that will get you ALOT of stuff... i got about 30 feet of hemp rope and 15 feet of guage wire.




the wire i got is stainless steel but i always make sure that it is completly covered just incase, i only leave it exposed if necessary

Great to hear! I think it is so important when we build things we make sure others know what safe woods were used and that safe metals were used and so on. If we stress this more and more people will catch on to how important this is. Thanks so much !!!!

Good job Andrea, thank you for sharing.

Love the playgym. There sure is plenty to keep them occupied on that. Nice job on all of them! Manhattan sure is one lucky bird.

That playgym looks great. I have bought a bunch of the stuff to make Ole one. Now I just have to do it! I like the idea of the beads. It makes it really colorful. Manhattan is a lucky bird!

Where did you buy gauge wire thick enough to make a boing with? I cannot find it and I'm going nuts in my attempt to. I must have been to ever craft store in town.

I love it! Well done!

Great job! They look like so much fun!!!

....Nico wants to know if he can come play at your house!

geat job....i love the toys you have made. i think im going to steal your idea and make one for my fids.

i think my dad got the wire at a local hardware store... i think they had to order it for him but it wasn't expensive at all... i found a different kind of wire at wal-mart and showed it to my dad and three days later he had it in stainless steal... i would just go to lowes or home depot and just ask if they had it or could order it.





i'm so glad you all like everything... it's really easy to make. steal as many ideas as you want!!! but i have to thank michelle again for her instructions on how to make the play gym! Thank you Michelle!

Im having trouble finding the colorful cotton rope. I have found the paulie rope it is suppose to be OK but Im just not sure I did buy some but really leary to use it be cause even tho it says for birds it is made from polypropoline

Try ordering here.This is the only place that sells cotton rope at a decent price (that I have found) -- $5 for 10' of 1/2" rope. Perfect for making cool things like boings.

Dang, if I was a bird I'd think I was in heaven.(lol)
All the cool play gyms I've seen is making me feel like a bad mama since all my bird has are cage toys and my ears, hair, glasses etc.(lol) Guess I'm off to the store to see if I can find something to create.

Where do you get the "gauged wire?"

What a great play gym, makes me want to jaz mine up a bit. Will post pictures when i,m done with it.

Do you know what gauge the wire was?

Kalamity - if you find out, let me know, please...I am still trying to figure out what "gauged wire" is!

Gauged wire isn't any special kind of wire; gaugerefers to the thickness of the wire. The higher the number, the thinner the wire. I would think that for making boings and things that need to old their shape, you would want at least a 12 or an 8 gauge wire, but I really don't know. Here is a link that shows the thickness of different gauges. But, like the paragraph says, the little box should measure 1/2" on your screen for the lines to accurately show the thickness of the wire.

http://jewelry.about.com/cs/identifyjewelr...lgaugechart.htm

Maybe Andrea can look at this chart and pick the line that she thinks best matches the thickness of the wire she used? I will continue to research this as well...

I found this website that sells stainless steel wire for bird toys. She measures it differently than the link I posted before. That was measured in terms of body jewelry.

http://www.greyfeathertoys.com/cgi-bin/qui...abase_stainless

I think I read on another site that for large boings use 1/8" ss wire and for small boings use 3/32". The link for that site is

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art6814.asp

Anyway, that's my contribution to DIY.