Food coloring shelves

I ordered blue colored shelves TJs chinchilla supplies. When I opened the box and took out the shelves, they completely stained my fingers and so I left it outside in the sun for 3 days overnight. Every time I touch it, it stains. I tried putting it in the microwave and it started bubbling and it still leaves stains. I have it in the toaster oven at 200 degrees right now. It looks dry and all but when I touch it, it leaves stains. Help...of course I am not going to give these to my chinchillas because they stain, so I need to know how I can get the shelves to not stain and safe for my chinchilla!

Try cleaning them with peroxide. It might lighten the color but it could help with the staining.

Contact her and return them. Maybe ask for a replacement or refund.

I left them out in the sun all day, and they are starting to dry!! It doesn't stain as much and I think they will completely dry. The person who dyed these shelves just used way too much food coloring.

There's probably a reason the person is not listed on our master supplier list in the classifieds section.

Yeah I don't know why someone would give me food colored shelves that leaked blue coloring everywhere and not safe for chinchillas. I guess it's because the food coloring was one $1 more to the price of the shelves

I don't know if dyeing shelves is the best idea since the chins have their feet on them all the time and get dye can end up all over their feet and bellies. I like to keep my shelves and ledges natural in color, or maybe make them pink - certain colors just seem to come off of dyed wood much more easily and certain types of wood don't hold the dye as well.

I'd return them and get undyed shelves. Blue is one of the colors that comes off easier than others, I have noticed...especially dark blue.

Yeah it's dark blue. I can't return them, my parents won't let me. I made a mistake, the only reason I chose blue is because he is a boy and it matched with his cage theme - all blue. It was only a dollar more, and I thought it would be ok to add some color to the cages. I ordered 3 natural shelves as well in the same order, just 2 of them is blue. I'm just hoping it dries completely and will make sure no color will stain or leak when I hold them before giving the shelves to my chinchilla.

You could wash simply with water then oven dry on a lower temp. The water will wash the excess coloring out an once they dry you should be good to go.

email them, they will refund your money. they are super good. i know they really care about their customers. could be they probably didnt know this is happening. i emailed once about something and had no problem at all getting a refund and they were really apologetic

summer

I would try contacting her. She really cares about making her customers happy so maybe she'll be able to do a refund.

I agree with Summer ^, she probably didn't know the wood was still wet or else she wouldn't have sent it. I've had a hidey house have a roof fall off on the way to its new home, but I thought the glue was dry cause I'd let it sit for a day and a half... so I suppose it's possible it seemed dry but wasn't, just like the glue for my house.

oh wow, how was your customer when the roof fell off, did they udnerstand it was just an accident? i hope so.

They were ok with it, they said it was no big deal. They just asked what kind of glue would be safe to use to glue it back on. I told them and they said they glued it back on and it was fine. They weren't mad or anything, just wanted to be able to fix the house so their chinnie could use it.

Course now, after that.... now I use extra glue just to make sure that these things don't happen and I typically let my houses sit for 2 days before shipping them out. Just to be on the safe side. And I imagine others are the same way -- they're made aware of a problem and they try their hardest to fix so it doesn't happen again.

thats good that they understand.

ohyes, i would probably do the same thing.. its good that they emailed you first to see how you would correct the problem.

I've ordered alot of colored shelves from tj's, never once had a problem. I love them, really adds to the cage. Maybe the wood just really soaked in the color more than others. Like I said, mine are awesome.

I can't wait to put the shelves in so I can put the fleece tunnel in also. I'm just waiting for them to dry. They still stain blue coloring. I don't want to rinse them because I like the color, so I'm just hoping that they will dry completely and no color leaks anywhere.

Since the seller in question is banned from this forum and we don't allow free advertisement of banned members, I am closing the thread down.