Name: Rick

Country: usa

Message: A lot of info...thanks, but I have one question. I am using bamboo that has been colored by disperse dyes for the manufacture of bird toys. birds will chew on this and my concern is the toxic effect on them or is there no worry? thanks for your help

That's a difficult question to answer. I can't imagine why they're using disperse dyes on wood, because disperse dye is for polyester and other synthetic fibers, not for cellulose materials like cotton and wood. It will not bond to the wood, so it might leach out when chewed upon. 

None of the disperse dyes have been tested for safety by human or animal consumption, as far as I know. The only dyes which have been tested for safety in humans are food colorings and the colorings used for drugs and cosmetics. See my page, "Using Food Coloring as a Textile Dye for Protein Fibers", although of course wood is not a protein fiber; it's made of cellulose and lignen. My page on food colorings does contain relevant information, nonetheless. Food colorings will stain wood and other cellulose-containing substances, such as cotton or linen, only temporarily, which means that they will wash out when it gets wet; the same should be true of disperse dyes, since they do not bind to the molecules in the wood.

You can find instructions online for coloring your own wooden bird toys with food coloring that is known to be safe for humans to eat. For example, on The ToyMaker's Make Your Own Bird Toys page, a contributer named Diane Trifilo suggests soaking wood pieces in unsweetened Jello or food coloring overnight, or, for bolder colors, using cake coloring paste.  A similar method would be to soak in a paste made by mixing unsweetened Kool-aid with a little water. In each of these cases, the dye is only temporarily staining the wood, but that's all right for a material that will not be washed and will not be allowed to contact clothing or furnishings when damp.

There are also instructions for using children's non-toxic tempera paints for the same purpose. Note that this is significantly less safe. The "non-toxic" designation assures you that there will be no sudden acute poisoning, as from lead or arsenic (unless the product was mislabeled, as occurs only rarely), but there is no assurance that repeated oral consumption is safe from producing chronic health problems. It's probably okay to use the paint for bird toys, but it's not as certain to be safe as using the safety-tested food colorings. Food colorings undergo a vastly more strict testing process, including large-scale feeding studies; non-toxic paints do not undergo any similar testing process and should not be considered safe for human consumption, at least. Some may contain small amounts of contamination with substances that are entirely unsuitable for use on items that will be chewed upon.

Many disperse dyes are not particularly toxic; however, none of them, as far as I know, have ever been tested for safety when consumed as a food. Therefore, I would consider them to be less safe for bird toys than FDA-approved food colorings. Some disperse dyes are considered to be toxic, but these are less likely to be in use. For example, Disperse Blue 34 is supposed to be a safe alternative for the more toxic Disperse Blue 1 [PDF], Disperse Red 334 safer than Disperse Red 151, and Disperse Yellow 26 safer than Disperse Yellow 7.  On the other hand, I've never heard of birds dying as the result of dyes in their toys or food. I cannot tell you that chewing on disperse dyes will harm your birds.

If you are making your own wooden bird toys, I would advise you to use food colorings as your dyes, simply because we can have much more confidence that it is safe. I do not know whether you should be wary of using the bird toys you have now. I can't tell you whether using the commercially available bird toys that are dyed with disperse dyes will pose any risk of harm to your birds. If experienced bird owners tell you that their birds have played with these toys for years without harm, then you shouldn't worry much. Only if these dyes are an innovation, different from the dyes that long-time bird owners have experience with, would I be really concerned.

Note that natural dyes, also known as vegetable dyes, are similar to food colorings, in that they will not, in most cases, bond to a cellulose fiber. When natural dyes are used to dye cotton, they must be used with mordants of varying degrees of toxicity, or the dyes will not be resistant to washing out. This makes most natural dyes less safe than synthetic dyes for dyeing garments for infants who chew on their clothing. However, since you are not concerned with whether your wooden toys will retain their color after washing, you can stain them temporarily with natural dyes. Some natural dyes are somewhat hazardous, but some others are safe. Among the safe natural dyes that are appropriate for experimentation for suitability for bird toys without mordants are turmeric (yellow), cochineal (red), and walnut husks (brown). 

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