Sand perches are good and bad. What do I mean by that? Sand perches supposedly help keep nails in check but they can also rub away at the bird’s feet and make them sore and even injure them. I’ve never really seen much evidence for the keeping the nails in check but it can’t hurt… IF… it’s done properly.
Paper Sand Perches: Even though I have this on ONE piece in the whole house, I have it on there for good reason. I DO NOT recommend you get the paper/cardboard like sand perch COVERS for cage perches, tree limbs or wooden dowels. Birds will literally shred, peel and pick apart the world if given the chance. Hell they’d shred and peel water if they could. Birds will generally shred this type of perch which can not only get sand everywhere including their eyes and nose but if they decide to be a dopus and eat it, it could get stuck in their crop (the chest pouch that holds their food while the gizzard grinds it up). Not only could this block their digestive tract which basically will starve them to death but the sandpaper will scratch them from the inside. An agonizing way to go and you won’t even know until its too late.
I DO have this on the long wooden dowel perch on the playpen in one of the pics in the “Bringing Birdy Home” tab. I have this there because if they are going to be out it means that either my wife or I are supervising the activity. If a bird starts eating the sand paper, we can put a stop to it or remove it. You can’t monitor that if it is in the cage permanently. It being where it is, I placed that long dowel sticking out and over the plastic turkey serving tray and I trained Herbie that if he had to poop that he was to fly to that perch and poop there. That way, the plastic tray would catch it and when it dries you can easily take a $0.70 plastic paint scraper and clean it off. So when he goes there, if sand perches DO happen to help with nail trimming, he’ll have a short dose of it every time he goes there to poop. He doesn’t go there all the time but if you remember and toss him on it when he has to go he’ll go there. So I advise against the paper slip on sand perch covers except in that scenario.
If you do use these sand perch covers for that, a word of advice. While the sand perch covers are still in the bag, rub them/roll them back and forth against each other. Put them between your hands and rub back and forth like Mr Miyagi with “that thing he does” to fix broken body parts. This will get rid of any loose sand. Loose sand can be both messy and can harm the bird.