PLEASE DO NOT FEED YOUR BIRDS GRAPES FROM CHILLI AT THE MOMENT! DO NOT FEED GRAPES FROM CHILLI TO YOUR BIRDS!!!!

 

A person on another board I frequent lost 8 of his parrots last night, shortly after feeding them chillian grapes. All the birds were in fine health until shortly after eating these grapes. People have been feeding their parrots on these grapes for ages, so it seems that a bad batch has come through. As routine, the grapes were washed well before being fed to the parrots, but EVERY PARROT THAT ATE THESE GRAPES IS NOW DEAD. The parrots are all going to have post mortems to exact the cause, but it HAS to be from the grapes.

I will keep you all updated, but in the meantime DO NOT FEED THESE GRAPES TO ANY OF YOUR BIRDS.

Anne

thanks for the warning.

 

Claire

xXx

Thanks chirpy.

Julie

copy and pastes from alerting forum. This isnt to be taken lightly.

 

okay, here are the details. It is not of course confirmed that it was these grapes BUT [/] this was the ONLY food that was fed differently and fed singly as a treat to this one room of birds. The product was washed well.

 

Sterling asked me to advise you all not to take any chances feeding these grapes. He is sending in the grapes for analyzing and the birds will undergo a necropsy. He had the fire department out to check air quality and he has the UV air sterilizers.

 

It may very well be a local area thing or a particular shipment; maybe something the store where the grapes were purchased but personally I will not be feeding these grapes or any other foods imported from Chile until I hear the results.

 

The birds lost were 1 M2, 1 GSC2, 1 MSC2, 4 U2s, a Hahn's, and a Pionus. Those that talk or chat w/ Sterling are aware of the special feelings he had for Natasha and Tasha(U2s) (I hope I got the names right I'm rather shaken by all of this) both were lost. His wife also lost her U2 Sonny.

 

All birds were fed only a 1/2 grape after thorough washing. It was approx. an hr later and Marley was showing problems; after that he started losing the birds about 3 mins apart.

 

While Sterling is not trying to be an alarmist he said he would feel awful if he said nothing at all and others lost their companions. Sterling is very crushed by all this and is blaming himself; which of course I told him otherwise. I asked him if I had called him telling him that all my birds passed from something I fed them would he blame me? Of course not !! We all try so hard to do what we learn and think is best for our birds and we can not control things like this. Laurie (his wife) is beating herself up for she was the one who washed the grapes.

 

I think we all need to send positive thoughts to Sterling in light of these tragic events; for if anyone needs "outsiders' " strength it is his family during what will be a horrific time to have to work through.

 

While on the phone w/ him all he could think of were the empty cages he was staring at and those poor little precious bodies in his fridge awaiting necropsy.

 

I also will be making a donation to his rescue to try to help cushion the costs of the bills that will be incurred from this event. If you all have anything to spare I encourage you to do the same.

 

I will give an update when I hear back from him; unless he has the strength to post himself. Thank you for your time.

 

 

_________________

Another c+p, and also a very good idea, am going to ring my own vet now.

 

 

I didn't see anyone post this, even if it is common sense...I wanted to mention that in addition to cross posting on other boards:

 

Contact your vet's so that they may post a sign in their offices to warn bird owners. Incase someone hadn't planned/thought of doing this.

 

Again, I'm so sorry Sterling. I can't imagine...

Thats scary even though they were washed is it possible for some bacteria or anyhthing else still stays on it even possible somethiung got through to the inside of the grapes!

oh my gosh thanks for that! i wont be eating any grapes wither now for a while!! so sad...

Well do you really think humans will be affected by this it might even be a kind of poison that was formed in it that doesn't do anything to humans did anyone alert authorities?

well it may not kill us, but anything that can kill a parrot or any animal CANT be good to eat.

No like one of those things where you eat something bad then you throw up thats what would happen to us probably...

Am bringing this back up to the top again, as I feel it is too important to be missed. In answer to the Q, Sterdons daughter did eat a couple of the grapes, and WAS ill for a few hours, but, thank god is fine (aside from the devastation the loss off the beloved birds has has on the family)

My advice is dont feed your pets, any pets, ANY chillean imports at the moment, if ever. There is quite a big investigation going on as to the type of, and level of pesticides used on theier fruit and veg at the moment, and it dosent appear to be the happiest news.

Anne

Chirpy, it IS important, isn't it? I will pin this for a bit.

sorry to hear about the parrots chirpy i am due to have one african grey female to come and stay for a month while the owners are away so i wont be feeding any grapes.im not going to take any chances.we do get chilean grapes sent over to england i will people know nearby to me . mistymoo

I just dont know what to say!! I know I would be devastated too..

I would like to pass my heart felt sympathy onto the whole family.. Also I too would like to make a donation if someone can let me have details of where to send it..

Oh my gosh, i can't imagine anything worse than losing 9 birds at once.

i was reading in a new magazine that i brought the other day called bird keeper it had mentioned about the chilean grapes. the post was written via email by MARIE DIGATONO ,this was put in the april 2005 editon. a web site for this mag is www.birdkeeper.com if any of you are intrested. mistymoo

Thankyou mistymoo, and thankyou for the kind offer of a donation trikkivix, but the last I heard he wasnt taking anymore donations, but I can check for you. I will go see what the latest update on this subject is. Ive been waiting because until the full necropsy reports came through, it was too easy to get carried away with supposition.

 

okay, if you click on the link, it will take you right to Sterdons rescue site. Once there, click on memorial for a full update.

Also, it gives you an opportunity to see what this wonderful man does.

http://allcapeparrotrescue.com/

Edited March 27, 200520 yr by chirpy

I can see why!!!

Oh No! Can you imagine feeling that terrible? I keep crying aand pooka doesn't understand why i don't want to play. If something like that happened to me I would commit suicide

No you wouldn't

 

I would lock myself up with a can of whipped cream and cry a lot....

Rainbow, thankyou for the pin. It IS vitally important people are kept aware, thankyou from my heart. If more explicit news comes forth, I will C/P straight away.

Gratitude,

Anne xx

You're welcome. There was an article in this months Parrots Magazine about those grapes. It said the grapes had been washed and peeled, the danger was inside the meat of the grape. There was truly no way to know. So sad.

That's terrible.

 

Surely if the grapes had such a rapid effect on the birds these grapes couldn't be too good for humans either!

I read* that for similar reasons birds should not be fed strawberries or raspberries from the U.S. A treatment that is used to keep the fruits from wilting too quickly and pesticides (30 of them detected by the FDA) is harmful to birds and can in some cases cause death. When in doubt, it is best to stick to bio, this way our birds (and ourselves) will be much better off.

 

*An article in the Avicultural Journal of September/october 2000 described the problems in detail. This link describes the situation well:

http://www.landofvos.com/articles/kitchen3.html

Edited February 26, 200619 yr by Martine

That's terrible.

 

Surely if the grapes had such a rapid effect on the birds these grapes couldn't be too good for humans either!

Sadly birds only need a small amount of toxins to be fatal whereas they deem these levels okay for humans, although I'd prefer not to eat fruit with toxins in.