This morning, I woke up to the sound of Alex screaming. I rushed down the hall, and saw my mom trying to catch Alex in the cage, who was flapping around and panicking. He had gotten his wing caught in one of the toys, which happens to be a bunch of rings.

Before I could process what was going on, my mom started shouting at me to help. When I figured out what was going on, I rushed over. My mom got out of the way for me to take over. The first thing I did was grab ahold of Alex to keep him from flapping. Then I had to get manage to unhook the toy from the ceiling of the cage, meanwhile a frightened and in pain Alex was biting the crap out of me. He apparently bit the blood out of mom before I got there, and this is a bird who never bites to hurt. Luckily, I had more control over my reactions to pain, and didn't let him go. I got the toy unhooked, and brought him over to the counter, where we put a towel over him, and my mom was able to carefully remove the toy from his wing.

Alex suffered minor injuries thankfully. It took him a little bit to calm down, but he's ok now. My mom put some triple antibiotic ointment on the couple of bloody spots we saw on his wing, and hopefully they'll heal just fine (they're not big at all).

This is a reminder for everyone to be careful with the toys they chose. Try avoid putting anything that they can possibly get their wing or foot caught in. We were lucky enough to get Alex out of it before he got seriously hurt, but I can assure you that we're not going to put that toy back in the cage ever again (though I kept the bell, because Lucy likes to carry small items). You never know what may happen.

This is the toy in question that Alex caught his wing in:

Is he a tiny bird?

You'd think when buying bird toys they would be made safely for our pets.... but no.... must toys for bird have a danger somewhere in them... it doesn't help that tiels are so inquisitive they seem to be able to manage things my other birds cant....
Ive had those rings in with my birds but took them out as Obi got stuck in one!

Ouch. That's scary. Glad he's ok. Mel, Alex is a cockatiel.

Oh really. Wouldent think he'd fit glad hes ok

I wouldn't think so either, but he proved everyone else wrong.

Alex is more prone to terrors than Lucy. He seemed to have had one early in the morning, and the toy was right there.

I think the toy might actually be for smaller birds like budgies, where their wings are too small to get stuck like that. Still, I wouldn't feel comfortable putting that in a cage with any bird, now. I took out another ring toy, as well. There are little mirrors in the middle of the rings, but the openings are small enough to get feet caught in.

I might need to go toy shopping sometime soon. Or try and make some.

Making toys for cockatiels is super easy. Go to a store like Michaels, JoAnn or Hobby Lobby and buy some craft sticks aka popsicle sticks. Drill a small hole in them and string them on something, or just give them to the bird as is. Cockatiels love to make toothpicks out of them.

Well yeah, making toys wouldn't be hard at all. especially for Lucy. She thinks everything out there is a toy meant for her to play with.

Got toy making group on fb if interested I can send u link.

I've already joined it, actually. I've posted a few times.

I'm not sure if you'd recognize me or not, Mel. I made the photo album: "Jasmine's attempt at toys", which doesn't really have much in it. I haven't really had anything in creative in mind for toys yet, though I check the group for inspiration.