Our 15 year old Baby took her first bath a few weeks ago. She LOVED it! I was a little concerned that she might get chilled from it, but I watched her carefully till she dried and everything seemed okay. Later I went over to look at her and she was in her cage, hanging onto the bars with her feet and the undersides of them were BRIGHT red!! I was really worried that somehow having her feet wet caused it. They didn't look like they were bleeding, but they sure looked sore and almost raw. Poor girl! But they didn't seem to be bothering her, so I decided to watch her carefully and see if they looked better or worse in the morning (it was nighttime).

 

I went to bed and as my mind was going over the stuff of the day, somehow I figured out what caused Baby's feet to become so red. Immediately after the bath, she perched on her playground, which has bright pink/red strawberry dyed wood! I ran out to the living room to share my idea with my husband and we looked at her feet, the color of which really DID seem to match her playground. We looked at her favorite sitting place and sure enough, there were little feet marks that were lighter than the rest!

 

It sure was a scare for nothing! However I do wonder if the dyes used are safe.... The next time we're at the pet store, I'll have to look at the box of her thing to see if it says anything about non-toxic stuff.

 

I thought I'd share this in case it happens to anyone else. *L*

Oh my that has never happened to us with our play gym. Thanks for sharing, what an experience and glad everything worked out okay.

It's frightening when things like that happen! I remember the first time I went into the Petsmart an hour away from me. Most of the budgies had red faces and it looked just like blood! I freaked out for a minute until I noticed the bowl of fresh food, which included strawberries. (Laughing out loud). (Though, for a note, the strawberries probably weren't organic and are at the top of the list of foods you should never feed unless organic due to the high amount of pesticides used on them!)

And I was just going to praise that store for giving them something other then seed

I noticed the dye on my playgym runs too!! :(Laughing out loud): I've read lots of stories where people have paniced cause their budgie changed colour when infact they'd just rubbed against something dyed.

Forgot to mention, most dyes on toys and gyms are safe (they use food dye). It comes off easily though, as you noticed. I've gotten it on my hands when cleaning toys before.

It's still annoying when it washes off, I tend to "lightly" clean those toys and "thoroughly scrub" the other ones.