Owlet
Well-known member
Hi guys, its been awhile since I've been here, but I came across a topic that I think might be interesting to discuss.
I was watching a video from toucan.tv discussing the resent death and necropsy of one of his toucans. In this video he mentions how the necropsy showed many things, one being that the bird (Beatrix) had elevated zinc levels in her liver that might have contributed to some of her physical conditions such as poor beak and feather health. This immediately peaked my interest as Lincoln consistently has poor beak health and i could never really figure out WHY and I'm more than willing to go down any road I can if it means helping him achieve a better quality of life. He also has poor feather conditions but that could easily be many things.
So I decided to look into zinc and zinc in parrot more and I came across this fascinating article (that I will link below) that talks about how a parrot may come to ingest zinc. It lists many of the easily known and common sources such as plated metal toy pieces and galvanized cages. However it ALSO mentions powder coated cages. They say they scraped some of the paint off the cage and it tested a having 1200ppm of zinc. Wow! Now it doesn't clarify if ALL powder coated cages have high levels of zinc, or if it was just this specific brand in the case they are describing. But it really makes you take some things into consideration. Most large parrot cages are powder coated. And as we all know parrots use their beak to climb around a lot. So even if they aren't avid bar chewers, there's still potential of ingesting possibly zinc laced powder coating. I'm going to read into it more and see if I can figure out how I can test Lincoln's cage for zinc.
Here is the article, what do you guys think about this?: https://www.forthebirdsdvm.com/blogs/news/1586462-zinc-and-parrots-more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know
Powder coated cages have always been toted as the best cages available next to stainless steel. So its shocking to hear they may not be as safe as we thought.
I was watching a video from toucan.tv discussing the resent death and necropsy of one of his toucans. In this video he mentions how the necropsy showed many things, one being that the bird (Beatrix) had elevated zinc levels in her liver that might have contributed to some of her physical conditions such as poor beak and feather health. This immediately peaked my interest as Lincoln consistently has poor beak health and i could never really figure out WHY and I'm more than willing to go down any road I can if it means helping him achieve a better quality of life. He also has poor feather conditions but that could easily be many things.
So I decided to look into zinc and zinc in parrot more and I came across this fascinating article (that I will link below) that talks about how a parrot may come to ingest zinc. It lists many of the easily known and common sources such as plated metal toy pieces and galvanized cages. However it ALSO mentions powder coated cages. They say they scraped some of the paint off the cage and it tested a having 1200ppm of zinc. Wow! Now it doesn't clarify if ALL powder coated cages have high levels of zinc, or if it was just this specific brand in the case they are describing. But it really makes you take some things into consideration. Most large parrot cages are powder coated. And as we all know parrots use their beak to climb around a lot. So even if they aren't avid bar chewers, there's still potential of ingesting possibly zinc laced powder coating. I'm going to read into it more and see if I can figure out how I can test Lincoln's cage for zinc.
Here is the article, what do you guys think about this?: https://www.forthebirdsdvm.com/blogs/news/1586462-zinc-and-parrots-more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know
Powder coated cages have always been toted as the best cages available next to stainless steel. So its shocking to hear they may not be as safe as we thought.