How to Choose Wood Perches

Wood Perches are one of the most popular bird perches because they are so natural for parrots to perch on.  Wood branches from real hardwood trees or shrubs offer variable diameters across the length of the branch. Some wood perches, like the Java Wood Perch, have unique twists and turns, too.  Variable diameters are highly important to help your parrot maintain optimum foot health. 

To understand, you may need to learn a little about the parrot foot. Looking at the parrots’ feet below, you’ll see that they are zygodactyl, meaning that two toes point forward and two toes point backwards.  Designed for superior climbing abilities and even for holding food each toe on a birds’ foot has a different amount of joints in it and numerous muscles.  You know just how strong a parrots toes are if you’ve ever tried to trim your parrots’ toenails!

Look at the close up of this parrot foot.  It is Peachy’s foot, a Moluccan Cockatoo. Peachy, like all parrots, must stand, climb and eat with his feet all day and all night long.  It only makes sense that parrots need perches that offer significant variation in diameter.  Just imagine how cramped a parrots foot could get if it were only able to grip a single diameter, like a dowel wood perch.  You probably know for yourself how stiff your feet can get when you stand on them for a few hours.  And, when your feet hurt, it seems that you hurt all over. 

Encourage your parrot to exercise the joints and muscles in its well-used feet with a wood perch that features twists and variable diameters across the length of the branch.

Wood Perch Comparison Chart

	Manzanita Wood Perch	Dragonwood Perch	Java Wood Perch
Wood Density	Grown in American Northwest; 8th most dense wood; used for wood perches and wood bird stands.	Very Hard wood harvested in American Southeast; Tough inner core with unique, enticing bark that is easy to graasp and fun to chew.	Imported from coffee growing countries, extremely hard Java wood is one of the only plants to grow in a twisted, horizontal  pattern.
Bark Coating	Slick, peeling bark, picture shown is handscraped. Has enough varigation in diameter that birds with healthy feet and toes intact have no difficulties gripping appropriately sized wood perches.	Varigated textured bark fun for chewing.  Excellent wood perch for birds that have arthritic or compromised feet including missing toes or toe nails.	Painstakingly hand Scrapped production increases the varibility of this already twisted, variable wood perch. Highly variable wood allows birds iwth healthy feet to grip the perch.
Variability	Very good variability, especially with trimmed off shoots.	Moderate Variability	Highly variable within each branch