Does tea get rid of toxic irons???

[Ecclipse]

I heard something quite interesting and thought maybe someone would know if it was true and was healthy for parrots. I was told that if you give your parrot tea instead of water for a day every 5 months it would cleanse excess irons that can kill a parrot. Is this true?

 

[Auggie's Dad]

I highly doubt that it would do anything to excess iron, but there's a fair chance the tea would kill them. I suppose then the iron wouldn't be a problem.

CAFFEINE IS TOXIC TO BIRDS, DO NOT GIVE IT TO THEM.

As for the iron... that's not usually a problem, do you think your bird is ingesting excess iron?

 

[Ecclipse]

Thats what I thought - the caffeine would kill them, before hearing this statement I didn't even think of my parrots iron. I have never given my parrot coffee or tea because its toxic. I was just interested to hear if there was any basis to parrots being killed by excess iron and thought that maybe there was some tea that was not toxic for birds that people gave because of the iron. I guess one will hear all sorts of stuff...

 

[Auggie's Dad]

Heavy metal toxicity is a known issue, primarily for birds kept in poorly made cages. But this would be mainly lead and zinc. Iron is not toxic in the same way as these. In fact iron is an essential part of their diet as it is ours though this is rarely worth consideration as unless there is an underlying disease most birds, and most humans, get plenty of iron in our diets without having to fuss about it.

Can they get too much iron? Sure, in principle too much of anything can be dangerous. But again unless there is some underlying disease, or the bird is skipping meals to eat the rust off of an old cage, excess iron would not be an issue.

There are two dangers in this type of "folk medicine" - one is that the treatment needed to save a sick bird is not likely appropriate for a healthy bird: if it ain't broke don't break it. And two, often the suggested 'treatments' themselves will be deadly.

I had a coworker who recently broke her leg. She had to wear a cast to heal, and pretty quickly she was all better. This is not a reason for the rest of us to wear a cast on our leg just to make our legs stronger - that'd be a very foolish idea.

If your bird is not sick do not treat them. If your bird is sick seek the advice of a veterinarian, not an acupuncturist or homeopath (or psychopath).

 

[Ecclipse]

Hahaha - thanks Auggie's Dad, I promise you that I do have a little bit of common sense....somewhere...heehee. Its just that it came from someone who breeds birds and I kinda stopped and thought maybe I was missing someone.

I like your sense of humor...I will not be letting my parrot join me for tea...not sure you remember giving me advice about not using my finger as a perch - it took only 3 days and Hugo has settled and is very trusting again. Thank you again. Antionette has given my a link to help my bird talk more than me - thats gonna be difficult. Cant wait to get started. Anyways, we appreciate all the help you give us...

 

[Auggie's Dad]

I hope I never unintentionally implied you lacked common sense. I have also been exposed to advice from people who you would think should know better, but the advice can just be absurd.

This is both a great advantage and disadvantage of the internet: information is so freely and easily exchanged. Reliable information is at everyone's finger tips, but so is unreliable foolish information which is often more abundant. When you hear such advice that sounds odd look for sources - and not just some random website, but check out veterinarian or medical sites. A handy one is PubMed.com. You can search for articles about nearly any medical related topic and read the abstract (summaries) and often even the articles. Often the details can be complex, but the basic ideas are pretty accessible to anyone willing to look for them.

If you do search you probably will find a few articles talking about how tea can be good for getting rid of excess iron. But this is NOT in parrots, it is in humans (and of course lab rats) who have iron storage disorders (hemochromatosis and the like). The tannins is tea is what MAY be good for this purpose, and for humans the caffeine gets processed safely. In birds the tannins still MAY help IF they have a iron storage disorder, but in the mean time the caffeine would be VERY bad for them.

If a bird does have a legitimate disease or disorder a veterinarian can provide medications which work better than tea tannins.

So, the person you heard this from was not COMPLETELY making this up - but they were applying it quite dangerously to a situation for which it has no purpose.

 

[Ecclipse]

Hi Auggie's Dad, no dont worry at all - was just joking with my comment, I am thoroughly enjoying having found people who actually have sound advise. I only now realised how much I still need to learn. I will not be giving my boy any tea at all and to be honest I didnt think of the caffeine in the tea when hearing about it, thank goodness you warned me. I had a real chuckle - not at the time though, I bought Hugo some really fancy stainless steel bowls which hook, it took him, like 3 minutes and he tipped all the contents out - gotta love moments like that - oh dear. Will be dashing off to get cable ties ASAP. Hugo got onto my arm this evening without me having to put my shoulder against the cage, no more fingers needed - hes much happier Am not sure if you have posted info on fingers and the damage it can do but I think it would be very beneficial for everyone. Just a thought.