Birds love BOINGS. From the small finches to the larger parrots, it would be hard to find a bird who doesn’t enjoy playing on their BOING. Of course, different size birds need different size BOINGS to play on.

These instructions will make a BOING for any sized bird. Just make sure the rope is the appropriate size for the bird to grip and that the wire is heavy enough to support the bird without stretching out of shape when the bird is playing on it, but light enough that it has some spring.

My friend, Gay Noeth has provided the pictures and instructions to do this fun project. Her website On African Wings is well worth a visit.

Suppies You Will Need Are:
cotton rope - (lets use 10 feet – for a large boing for Amazon size birds)
wire - stainless steel would be best & if your bird chews you should probably consider using that (we’ll use 10.5 feet)
caps - for the top & bottom (you can use plastic ends for chair legs) drill 2 holes, the size of the wire
glue - (hot glue gun is best)
pliers – to bend the wire at the top & bottom

Make sure the ends of your rope are secured so it does not unravel on you.


You want to get the wire, up through the rope so that you can do the top end. Loosen the twist on the rope a little and insert wire and push through. Push it through one cap also.


Using pliers, bend the wire back, making a loop and put the end back into the cap. Leave enough sticking up to attach something to hang it up when you’re finished. Use the glue gun to partially fill the cap with glue and put the rope firmly into the cap. This picture shows the beginning of a toy added on top of the cap and if you want to have a toy here, put the wire through the toy before doubling it back down through the toy again & into the cap.


You can then trim the frayed ends of rope and are doing great with the BOING.

Now its time to wrap the rope around the wire. You do this with a twisting motion, you twist the natural weave of the rope to loosen it, like we did when first inserting the wire, and then you close the natural weave of the rope around the wire. You do this until your rope is all done....down to the end.


At this point, you are almost finished. The end of your rope looks much like the top end did. Cut any excess wire off that you won't need for finishing the end.


Think how you want to finish it. You will now probably need to loosen your rope on the wire a bit, so you can pull it down to the end of the wire and insert the end through, just like at the top. The bottom end is not as important as the top end because it doesn't need to hold the rope up in place. I often finish with the end caps so you put the wire through one hole in the end, bend it, and if you want a bell at the bottom put the bell on the wire now, and insert end back into cap. Again, you can glue your rope in the cap. This time I didn't use a cap, instead I used a large wooden ball. I thread some of the rope through the ball and the wire and made a loop in the wire to hold it. I then tied knots in many of the rope strands so the rope wouldn't untwist and put a few little babbles on some of the rope strands. Watch what length you leave the strands. You don't want this to become a dangerous toy for catching toes.


The only thing left to do now is to bend your Boing into the shape you desire and finish any toys you may have put on the Boing.


The most common question I have received since putting this article up is "what size wire should I get?". Since I obtained my stainless steel wire from Monica at Grey Feather Toy Creations, I wrote to her & asked.

Here is Monica's reply -

"For small birds boings we use 3/32" ss wire. For medium and large boings we use 1/8" ss wire the only thing that changes is the diameter of the natural cotton rope.

We wrap the rope around the wire which gives more traction for the bird when climbing and it proves to be more durable for birds who like to shred. Gives a longer, lasting boing.

One more thing I would like to add is by using stainless steel wire, you don't have to worry about those black, zinc-leeching stains coming through the boing when using galvanized wire."

If you've been looking for stainless steel wire to make a BOING for your bird, you can visit Monica's site.


I found some wonderful parrot t-shirts at Choice Shirts