Is Pressure Treated Wood Dangerous?

[HenzandHoundzFarm]

I am working on building a night enclosure for my pheasants. I've run out of room in my barn so this enclosure has to be completely outdoors. The plans I have seem well ventilated but I'm unsure of the dangers of pressure treated wood. Will the chemicals be dangerous to my birds? What's the risk? I want to start working soon so please help!!
I live in a really wet area so I don't know how the enclosure will hold up without pressure treated or stained wood.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Anything that touches the ground needs to resist rot. You maybe able to use concrete, cinder blocks, brick, something similar to that for the foundation. If it is not touching the ground you can use non-treated wood but if you use wood it should be redwood, fir, cedar, or pressure treated wood treated for ground contact. From my experience I can make an educated guess about how well non-treated wood will hold up on wet ground. You can probably guess what will happen.

There has been a big push in the treated wood industry to change the chemicals and treatment methods. The ones they use now are still poisonous, they have to be to work. But they are a lot safer than the older treatments. If you use treated wood your pheasant will not be considered "certified organic" but I don't know how important that is to you. I don't hesitate to use treated wood for anything touching the ground around my chickens.

 

[townchicks]

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me if you have a well ventilated area it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Different if it was parrots or something that would chew on the wood. You could paint it with a low VOC paint if you want to be extra safe.

 

[flyin-lowe]

When I built mine I used treated wood for the floor joist and the plywood floor itself. Mine sits directly on the ground. Everything else from the floor up (walls, nest boxes, etc.) are standard pine. The floor was coated in rubber roof coating as well but I use deep litter method so the chickens don't have any direct contact with the treated wood. Over three years and never had any issues.