Last night we had guests over and I was making waffles with my waffle maker for dessert. With all the franticness of making waffles for 8 people while trying to share the kitchen with people... I forgot to turn it off at the wall, so the hot panels were still on.

 

So for a period of maybe 10 or 15 minutes, there was teflon fumes being emitted from our kitchen. Cosmo's cage is kind of near the kitchen but not extremely close, but because it is winter, everything was closed up. I was very paranoid about it.

 

I went over to his cage and saw that he was looking very sleepy and fluffy (normal for 8:30pm of course, but I was paranoid!)

I opened all the windows downstairs and took Cosmo out of his cage. He was doing this funny thing with his beak - gagging a bit like when they're trying to regurgitate a seed that won't come out.

 

After about 10 minutes he suddenly sparked up and started talking and chattering non stop. We wondered if maybe he was picking up now that there was fresh air and the teflon fumes were leaving the house.

 

I will never know if he was getting affected by the fumes or not, but I didn't want to find out. It was just a scary reminder. I hope that he's no longer in danger now that it's the next day. I don't know how it works but yeah... glad I didn't have to find that out the hard way, and I'm glad that I was paranoid!

Edited July 9, 200915 yr by krosp

OMG Krosp....thank goodness your intuition was telling you something!!

 

Paranoid is GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! :rofl:

that was a close one.... :rofl:

He was affected. It takes very little. You did well and are so lucky. :rofl:

He was affected. It takes very little. You did well and are so lucky. :rofl:

 

:rofl: eek... I think you are right because I have read up a little since then and the gagging thing is a symptom. Feeling very relieved.... and like a bit of an idiot because this is the second time in a month that I've had to rescue him from my own stupidity! At least I respond quickly to my own mistakes lol. And both this and the paint incident are two mistakes I will never make again! I can hear the precious little guy chattering away right now and am so thankful.

Oh my :rofl: Thank goodness he is okay. It's so scary how fragile they really are.

Glad he is okay

whew, l'm so glad he is okay.

Glad he is okay!

 

We live in a small apartment, I'm constantly worried about Teflon fumes from our biggest pan -- I've convinced my housemates that it is EVIL and should be used very sparingly and at no higher than medium heat! Closed doors when cooking and all that.

I bought a non-teflon non-stick pan this year because of the risks. Plus it might be linked to human and cat thyroid tumors too.

We do have quite a few non-teflon things so it's usually okay. This was a waffle maker given to us as a wedding present. I think this was even the first time I used it since we got Cosmo... I will be so wary of that waffle maker from now on

I was preheating my oven today and as I walked back in I could smell that something on the bottom of the oven was burning (I am not very good at cleaning my oven )......

I looked over to Dash, who is in the gamesroom which is next to the familyroom/kitchen area (all open plan) and he was making a gagging motion

I took him straight out of the room, brought him into our spare room, opened the window wide and within a second he was breathing fine again but BOY!!! I got a huge scare!!!

I had just read this post a few days ago so remembered reading about the gagging motion (thank you Krosp).......

Gee I didn't think ovens were teflon coated????

 

On a different note, what do you guys all think of gas heaters?

And I mean the standard bar heaters, not the flued type.........

Edited August 21, 200915 yr by Clouds birds

Glad this helped someone else and that your budgie is okay.

 

I am thinking that maybe your oven isn't teflon coated but the fumes of something burning irritated the budgie's lungs all the same? I would be very surprised if an oven was teflon inside. But maybe it has some grill trays still inside it that might have some non-stick stuff? either way, good on you for responding to respiratory symptoms in good time!

 

I don't have an answer on the heaters...