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What you should NEVER feed your birds
| Toxic Items for Your Finches |
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| Milk, alcohol, tea, cocoa, chocolate, coffee, butter, sugar and onions are just some finch no-no's! |
Most of the things you should not feed your birds are pretty common sense, though not all
are intuitive at first mainly because most people eat such bad diets themselves. This list is by no means complete,
but it should get you thinking about what is not safe or healthy to feed your birds (and possible yourself).
1) Dairy products: Milk and unfermented dairy products
are to be avoided. Birds are NOT mammals. I've never seen a bird with teets, have you? So milk is
pretty much useless for them. In fact, they do not make the enzyme lactase which is necessary to digest lactose,
the sugar in milk. Feeding birds milk products can cause severe diarrhea. Cheese (as it's primarily protein) is
fine in small quantities. Yogurt is given by some in very small quantities for the beneficial bacteria it contains.
Much of the milk sugar in yogurt has been fermented. Otherwise, milk products should be avoided. Old Timers will
tell of feeding birds bread sopped with milk. I can only say that while their birds may have survived, we now know
much better than to do this. Any advice to feed birds milk and nonfermented milk products should be immediately discounted
and disregarded.
2) Caffeinated Products such as Coffee and Tea: Caffeine
is toxic to birds (as it is to humans but we are just too addicted and brain washed to stop using it). NEVER feed
caffeine to your birds. This includes decaffeinated teas and coffee. Notice they are called decaf - not caffeine
free. That is because decaf beverages usually contain only about 50% less caffeine than the high octane stuff.
Ironically, espresso has less caffeine because more of it is destroyed in over-roasting. Which ties back into what I
was saying about oil in roasted nuts. Well anyway, no coffee or tea for your birds.
3) Chocolate & Cocoa: These contain a chemical
substance similar to caffeine. It's called Theobromine and while it only has 1/10th the biological activity of caffeine,
it is still toxic for birds. NEVER give your birds chocolate!
4) Alcohol: While ole Toothless
Willy might like to give corn squeezin's to his bitch of a Gouldian hen, I don't recommend it. I doubt he ever really
did it honestly, but it sure made for a good story. Alchohol is a nervous system depressant and again, there's no place
for it in a finch's body (or in humans either but well....).
5) Sugar: Pure refined sugar is pretty much poison
as is brown, raw or dirty sugar. Molasses is only marginally better. They have next to zero nutritive
value, and there's no reason to feed them to your birds. (People should stop eating sugar too and perhaps
the diabetes crisis would subside). Furthermore, as discussed previously in the carotenoids/fruits section, finches
are not particularly fond of sweet foods. There's no place for sugar in your finches' diet.
Some do claim you can use sugar for bitter medications. I tried this once with Cipro.
The sugar only amplified the nasty bitter taste of the medication - there were just more electrolytes to freak your tongue
out on. Some use strawberry syrups to sweeten bitter meds. I've never tried it so I cannot comment.
Again, this is a human mentality since we like sugar to the point of killing ourselves. Finches prefer more natural
less sweet foods.
6) Hydrogenated and Saturated Fats:
Lard, Bacon Grease, Margarine, Butter, Crisco and Meat Trimmings are all things best thrown in the garbage rather than fed
to birds (or you for that matter).
Some do feed outside kept birds animal grease, butter or lard in the winter for
extra fuel to keep warm. A better alternative would be high oil containing seeds such as niger (also sometimes spelled
nyjer and most definitely pronounced NIGH-jerr. This seed was previously known as thistle but due to negative PR associated
with weedy thistles, the niger lobby has changed the name of the seed and emphasizes correct pronounciation to the point of
changing the spelling of the seed's name).
Anyway, don't ever feed things like Crisco and Margarine. This stuff is not even remotely
natural, and all the current research says that these are just nasty fats and shouldn't be eaten ever. I often wonder
if Napoleon lost the war because he was feeding his troops margarine to cut the costs and shortages associated with using
butter? BTW - Napolean's wars and the shortages associated with them were also the impetus for using sugar beets
for sugar rather than tropical cane sugar.
7) Raw Onion: Raw Onion can be contaminated with Black
Mold which is really Aspergillus niger. A. niger contains mycotoxins that can cause acute pulmonary
arrest in birds upon high enough short-term exposure. Long-term low level exposure can possibly cause cancer.
The same problem exists for humans only at higher concentrations. A. niger is one of those nasty
black molds that houses can be condemned for. So why risk it? Just don't feed your birds onions of any kind.
Be safe, not sorry.
8) Tobacco and Tobacco Products: Birds don't smoke nor do they chaw. Seems obvious enough, but I figured I'd better say it. Nicotine
is a potent toxin and poison.
9) NSAIDS/Aspirin: This can cause acute liver poisoning
and should NEVER be given.
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