I didn't buy these myself, just found a few in a toy making material bag that came together with two birds I was looking after temporarily.

I showed them to many people, even brought them to a toy shop asking them if they had them in stock, and nobody is even sure about the material they are made of.

The are very flexible and make a great addition to toys.

Does anyone know how are they called/what they are made of?
Each twig is about 2ft long, maybe less.

It's a mystery to me. There are a zillion things they remind me of, but they don't look exactly like anything.

I think this is what they are, Decorative Florist Rattan Twigs.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180723139726

I emailed the seller and she says that they are all natural and untreated, but of course being a florist item there is no guarantee that they will be 100% safe.
I made foot toys with the ones I got and nobody died or got sick..

mysafebirdstore sells rattan toys so that's a pretty good sign that it's safe. http://www.mysafebirdstore.com/NATURAL_ ... _Bird.html

I'd like to get some but so far I haven't found a US supplier.

Learning more about it... an alternate name for rattan is wicker and it's easier to find under that name. But the easiest way to find it is to google for basket reed.

The outer skin of the rattan stalk is called cane and the inner core is called reed. Both can be processed into a variety of sizes and shapes and are used for making chairs, baskets, etc. http://www.wickerwoman.com/articles/cane-and-reed

There is something called reed spline on eBay and it's not cheap. The colour is right, though. I can try send them a pic of my twigs and ask if they know what that is.

This website tells what everything is, sadly no links to where to buy the raw material
http://wickerworks.weebly.com/cane-raw-materials.html
I think wicker is too hard to be the sticks material.

Jan is there any way you could ask where the schools gets the material?
They should know the name too.

That round rattan reed in the photo seems just like it, Tielfan, only these I got are much thinner. But It has to be the same plant family!

I thought it was a reed of some sort Barbs.

Mel

lol yes! you said it from the beginning