Aspergillus.

Here in Denmark, a well known breeder and a man from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries have been testing seed diets for aspergillus. There has been studied two different samples of bird seed. For each sample has been taken 400 pieces which are incubated for 7 days at 20° C.

Result:

Australian Parrot diet: Aspergillus spp.: 32% and Penicillium spp.: 15%

IGP-Parrot diet: Aspergillus spp.: 66% and Penicillium spp.: 45% -

According to some people, this is the best parrot diet you can give your parrot and especially the AG. It is one of the best sold parrot product in Denmark.

This may be danish products, but I'm sure that it is the same thing all over the world.

My point is that seed diets must stop now. When a parrot die here in Denmark, the owner just go out to buy a new one, without finding out why the parrot died. In most cases it is because of the seed diet that he or she has been giving the parrot.

Very interesting. Its not just in Denmark that animals are treated as disposable & replacable. Ignorance is a human trait, not confined to any 1 nationality.

Really interesting. I am mostly using pellets(pellets has ha high amonunt of seed) and during manufactoring they are baked in a temperature around 40-50 deg C. Will that temperature kill Aspergillus ?

Unfortunately you're right, and very well said. I know that it is not just in Denmark such things happen, but it is all over the world. I showed the result to a parrot owner that is feeding a seed diet. Her answer was: "that is just their opinion." Opinion? LOL. It is not an opinion, it's clear fact. I also told her that she should read about it herself on Google, but that was a waste of her time, because she have veen feeding her parrot seeds for about one year, and her parrot have never been sick. Maybe she will first realize it, when her parrot die... Ignorance.

@oled: I think that it depends on which brand you are using. I know that Harrison's consists of mostly seeds and it also consists of peanuts which is the devil when it comes to aspergillus. There is also seeds in ZuPreem, but not as much as there is in Harrison's. There is not peanuts in ZuPreem .

I'll try to find further information regarding aspergillus in pellets .

Very interesting....
We use zupreem here and then lots of veggies ...they get seed once a week or less....
I have discovered that when Leroy (my caique) has seed...it GREATLY affects his mood.

I think that ZuPreem is the best brand that is available. Another bad thing with seeds is that they are very high in fat .

but also with pellets you have to remember to watch the amount of fresh food they eat. my macaw loves oranges and if i fed her a pellet diet she may suffer from too much vitamin c and cause iron storage disease. its possible to overdose on vitamins and minerals as well. and also macaws have a higher metabolism than most birds and need a higher fat diet consisting of seeds and nuts.
i feed my birds a human grade seed diet and plenty of fresh foods and nuts (excluding peanuts)

I tried ones to discuss different pellets in a forum in Sweden and I will never do it again.

All brands I know of is baked with a temperature of 40-50 deg C and I dont think that it will kill Aspergillus but sure 50 could be better than 40 ?

So I just talked with the man about if there can be found aspergillus in pellets. The answer is yes. When pellets gets produced they go through a heating and drying process which will eliminate all aspergillus. So when you buy it from the store, you can be sure that it does not contain aspergillus. You can't be sure with that if you are buying seed food. However, if you keep the pellets in an open bag or something like that, there can go moisture in it (?) and then it will develop aspergillus.

I don't know if it is correct to say: "there can go moisture in it." That is how we say it in arabic and danish .

There are many factors that can cause this disease in Parrot. And probably we should be aware of. I don't feed my Parrots peanust because of this reason anyway there is so many things I have posted a link on Aspergillosis.

Aspergillosis in Birds: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment Options as well as Prevention

Thanks Pedro

It's so vital for owners, especially new owners to be aware of apsergillus, I'd hate anyone's bird to go through what mine had to endure.

I stopped allowing my Grey to have peanuts many years ago when he was first affected by aspergillosis. MY vet advised me that peanuts were one of the worst sources and whole batches of peanut butter are regularly withdrawn because of aspergillus contamination.

Undetected leaking pipes under floors can be another source if they cause any damp that isn't spotted soon enough. The spores are in the air a lot anyway and if you live near places with a lot of compost heaps or have a composter or compost heap in the garden, there may be increased spore concentrations in the air. Both of the last two may also have been a contributing factor in Charlie's case.

I became very paranoid about it after that. Any seed Charlie had was human grade purchased from a health food store and stored very carefully, he was very much a seed junkie when he was first rescued. I installed air purifiers (not ionisers) to try and eliminate as much from the air as possible and bought an expensive vacuum cleaner with the best levels of filtration I could afford at the time. Sadly it was shutting the gate after the horse had bolted.

Unfortunately it can also lie dormant inside the bird as well, which is what happened. Where Charlie's immune system was already weakened due to being asthmatic, and having had most of his nose cut away to remove growths the first time, he was more susceptible as his immune system was unable to fight it.

Luckily, especially for Grey's, there are more effective drugs now - Charlie had Voriconazole (VFEND) when it flared up again in 2013. I just wish it had been available in 2004 and 2006 when Charlie was seriously ill with aspergillosis because most of the other antifungal drugs were toxic to Greys.

During Charlie's last major operation in 2006, the vet opened him up and sprayed F10 directly onto the granulomas. He cut out as many growths as he could but because there were many and attached to vital organs, he couldn't cut away all of the mass and this was his last gambit. Fortunately it worked and we had another 8 wonderful years with him.