# Teflon Poisoning< Not Just In Pans???



## xxmoxiexx (Oct 2, 2006)

apparently, teflon is in everything, and can kill birds. it is not just in cookwear. below is a piece of information from a website called "the environmental working group", and below that is the link to the site. Question though, they warn against space-heaters, and i have been using one for my sick rescue ferals for months. does that mean it doesnt have teflon?? how can you check??
also, check the links to the right on the website, the link called "bird death diaries" is extremely sad, but very informative. all the other links to the right on that site are also informative.

 Bird owners should avoid non-stick cookware. It is not enough to keep the bird in a room of the house far from the kitchen. In numerous cases, Teflon kitchen fumes have killed birds far from the source, in other rooms of the house. Bird owners should also avoid other heated appliances coated with non-stick surfaces, including waffle irons, griddles, stovetops and ovens, space heaters, irons and ironing board covers. Many of these are also implicated in deaths of pet birds by Teflon toxicosis. 

http://www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon/ownertips.php


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## warriec (Feb 2, 2007)

This I did not know. Thanks for the info


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Thank you. This is helpful information.
I also have been using one of the "questionable heaters "for my pigeons as well as one for my chickens. It would be tragic to lose them by something so easy to remedy.


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## xxmoxiexx (Oct 2, 2006)

oh, also some hair-dryers are implicated on that site, a different section of it.
if my space heater had teflon, wouldnt all my birds have died by now?? 
i just know that when you hear to keep a bird warm, a space heater popped into my head as a good source, so be careful everyone!! and i didnt know about teflon, someone should post some kind of warning on this site's home page... a moderator or someone?? just an idea, i know it would inform people like me who didnt know, and luckily i dont have teflon pans or i woulda killed birds before i found that out. teflon is also linked to human sicknesses, and also has a chemical similar to one used in WW2 for nerve gases, carcinogens and some other bad crud, and is released at cooking temperatures we all use within a few minutes, and doesnt have to be a scratched/worn out pan to affect birds/pets...


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

The only instances that I've heard of the teflon deal is when teflon pans have been left on the stove without anything in them and heated up to the point of making fumes out of the teflon coating. Normally, things wouldn't be designed to do that because if it's part of the design to have put the teflon on in the first place, the intention will be for it to stay on.

Pidgey


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## xxmoxiexx (Oct 2, 2006)

hmmm, well, it's with pre-heating also. i'm just saying it's not just pans. so many things have teflon. on that site, a microwave component failed that had teflon in it, killed 2 birds, made the owner sick.
also, an avian vet said most birds die before making it to the vet, but SOME have survived with an "IMMEDIATE application of steroids"
http://www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon/fewsaved.php


"The lowest temperature at which nonstick coatings have been reported to kill birds in a peer-reviewed study is 396°F (202°C) [3]. In May 1998, poultry researchers at the University of Missouri recorded 52 percent mortality in 2400 chicks within three days of the birds being placed into floor pens with new PTFE-coated heat lamp bulbs. After ruling out bacterial infections like E. Coli and Salmonella, or toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, the scientists finally linked the chick deaths to offgas products from the PTFE-coated bulbs. All of the chicks examined after death had lung lesions and moderate to severe pulmonary edema consistent with “PTFE toxicosis.” "
http://www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon/chemicals.php

follow the links, so much more is on there. make your own choice, i just want everyone to be informed and be careful so nothing bad happens. 
i know in preheating it can cause fumes, but i dont know about when there is something in them or not, how that works, couldnt find on that site, but havent looked at it ALL yet, so much information on there!!
yes, pidgey, part of the design is for it to stay on, but how many things in the past have been designed to stay on and didnt stay on?? sometimes yes, other times no... 
i also just didnt know teflon was in other things besides cookwear, so i'm assuming other people dont either.....

PEACE!!!


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## bevslape (Jul 22, 2005)

Most of your up-dated space heaters should indicate to you whether the are Teflon coated or not. We have a ceramic space heater in the coop and one in the indoor pigeon room where we keep our pigeons in during the winter. No problems yet. The rest is just educating oneself on the do-s and don't and using common sense.


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## littlestar (May 11, 2005)

I quit using pans and things with teflon when I got my first bird. I think it was last year or the year before that, that they had it on the news that Dupont finally admitted the danger of using teflon after they found it in whales and unborn babies along with pet birds. I know someone who's bird died due to teflon.


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## Larry_Cologne (Jul 6, 2004)

*Dangers of Teflon and such*

I think Teflon-coated products are great, for the purposes for which they are designed. Non-stick cooking and baking.

Adding a bird to the house puts a different factor into the equation, making Teflon perhaps not so great, or even bad. 

Twenty years ago I avoided buying Teflon-coated pans because I figured that at that time my wife was not so meticulous, so careful or picky about the utensils she cooked with. Using a steel fork or steel spatula to scrape something that stuck to an overheated, "nonstick" surface would quickly destroy the Teflon coating.

I took my philosophy from a small book I had purchased in the 1970s titled _Pots and Pans_. The author said that it is wonderful to have silver sautee' pans, and copper-plated-bottom pots and such, but if you are the type of husband-and-wife couple who throw pots and pans at each other, you would do better to buy cheap, thin aluminum pots. They are inexpensive to replace. Besides, she said, when thrown "they make such a wonderful sound." 

We didn't throw stuff at each other; that's not my point: the author was saying use the right tool for the job at hand. My wife tended to overheat the pans on the electric cooktop, which was new to us and not so easy to regulate as natural gas cooking is. I stuck (no pun intended) to stainless steel pans. 

*An important point* I would like to make, and which I (and probably others) have mentioned before:

A bird in a house or coop or cage or cote is not in its natural environment. It is by nature meant to live outdoors, free to come and go. Anytime we restrict a bird or such animal, we compromise its potential health and well-being. Hopefully we compromise it for the better, since we have taken the choice away from the bird or animal.

I am not saying that we should not shelter birds. I am simply saying that we have to argue both sides of the issue. We have to play the devil's advocate. When we decide to do something with or for a bird, we should take as our basic premise that everything we do is bad or will be bad for the bird, rather than assuming that everything we do with or for a bird is automatically good for the bird or animal. Starting from "everything I may do is possibly and probably bad" will uncover potential problems quicker than "everything I do is good," since the first step taken is to approach a problem, rather than the pat on the back. (At least it works that way for me).

We often and usually take into consideration whether what we are doing is good or beneficial for us, before we consider the well-being of the bird. That is as it should be. If I can't take care of myself (in the short term), how can I take care of something else (over the long term)? For example, before I take care of a plague victim, am I safe? If I want to pull an accident victim away from the middle of the highway, am I relatively safe from speeding traffic? 

What applies to birds and other creatures also applies to us. We live in unnatural environments. But we have made them more beneficial than detrimental, hopefully. It is no fun to be trapped in a burning building, or in a collapsing World Trade Center, or under a poorly-designed earthquake-damaged bridge. Or to be bouncing around in a car, without a fastened seatbelt which we have paid for but not used, during an accident. And I suppose our lungs were not designed to be filled with tobacco smoke. Or Teflon fumes or other fumes and gases from mis-used or previously thought safe products. But we consider it to be a good step down from sitting on a tree branch munching berries beneath someone higher up pooping on us and dropping berry stems and spitting out pits and seeds onto our matted, unwashed and uncombed hair.

Lots of words here, again. Gotta do some house-work for a change. 

Larry


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## mr squeaks (Apr 14, 2005)

Larry, you are something else!!

Thanks for the thoughtful thoughts and the giggles!!


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

The gas generated by overheating Teflon appears to be heavier than air. For instance the NIH study of the deaths of the poultry from teflon coated heat lamps (why in the world would any manufacturer go to the expense of coating a heat lamp with teflon?) suggests that the chicks were clustered down around the heat lamps. The report was not clear if there were also present older chickens as well.
There is a report from a vet who decided to study the toxic effects of teflon heated materials, he notes that within minutes the birds (budgies) exhibited rapid eye blinking, followed by obvious respiratory distress such as panting, open beak breathing, wing stretching and fluttering, blood emitted from the nostrils in some cases, leading finally to inability to fly and collapse.
From this one can conclude, keep your birds out of the kitchen, use the exhaust fan on the stove when cooking, or buy a small fan to blow fumes away safely, above all keep the birds off the floor and if using the stove for any period of time keep an eye on how your bird is doing.


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