Pet Birds and Toxic Foods

A Short List of Poisonous Plants You Should Never Feed Your Pet

Feb 2, 2007 Rosemary Drisdelle

Lots of plants, or parts of plants, that we have around the house are toxic to birds. This article describes just a few of them.

If you have a pet bird, you probably already know that there are lots of plants that can harm your pet if ingested. It’s no surprise to find out that most of these plants are poisonous for birds, animals and people—it’s just that we are so much bigger that in most cases we’d have to swallow a lot more of the plant before it would hurt us. Here are ten plants that you are likely to have in the house, at least occasionally, and should keep far away from your pet bird:

• Avocado: surprisingly, it seems that even people and animals can have trouble after eating avocado. The biggest problem seems to lie with leaves, rind, and bark from avocado trees: the toxin persin is found in these parts of the tree. Even the fruit, however, is off-limits for pet birds. Persin poisoning causes respiratory distress and heart failure. For more about avocado toxicity, visit http://kgkat.tripod.com/avocado.html
• Beans (raw): cooked beans are fine, but many raw beans contain a trypsin inhibitor that interferes with protein metabolism. A second toxin, hemaglutin is also present. People who have eaten half a dozen raw kidney beans suffer nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. A bird should not eat even one bean.
• Eggplant, potato and tomato leaves: these plants are all members of the Solanaceae family—the nightshades. Their leaves contain alkaloids that are poisonous for people and birds (green potatoes also contain these alkaloids and should not be eaten). Symptoms of ingestion in a bird include vomiting, diarrhea, and difficulty breathing.
• Holly berries and American mistletoe berries: these two are a puzzle—the berries of both plants are eaten and spread by birds in the wild; however, they are poisonous to people and may well be poisonous to species of birds that are not normally exposed to them. Mistletoe berries contain a digitalis–like compound that slows the heart rate, while holly berries contain, among other things, ilex acid, a stomach irritant.
• Nutmeg: this spice contains a narcotic, myristicin, which is not usually a problem for humans, who only eat tiny quantities at a time. A bird that consumes nutmeg, however, suffers from dizziness, nausea, and vomiting.
• Peanuts: peanuts are often fed to birds and raw peanuts are marketed for feeding to garden birds; however this can be risky. The problem is that peanuts are often contaminated with aflatoxin, a fungal toxin. Aflatoxin is carcinogenic and causes liver damage in birds, squirrels and humans, and doubtless other animals as well. Roasting reduces aflatoxin but does not eliminate it entirely. North American peanut producers, meanwhile, try to eliminate contaminated peanuts from their product.
• Rhubarb leaves: poisonous to people, animals, and birds alike, rhubarb leaves contain high concentrations of oxalic acid, an intestinal irritant. Large doses are fatal.
• Stone fruit: the stones of plums, peaches, apricots, and nectarines contain cyanide. The tiny amount of the poison in these stones would be insufficient to harm a human, but they should not be given to birds. Cyanogenic glycosides are enzyme inhibitors that cause nausea, vomiting, and eventually coma.
• Sweet Pea: the sweet pea is pretty, but neither humans nor birds can eat any part of the plant safely. Sweet pea contains a group of neurotoxins that cause paralysis.
• Tobacco: tobacco is another member of the Solanaceae, or nightshades. The poisonous alkaloid, nicotine, is the toxin in tobacco. Birds that ingest tobacco leaves suffer vomiting, diarrhea, seizures and other symptoms.

Related content:

Poisonous Birds

The copyright of the article Pet Birds and Toxic Foods in Birds is owned by Rosemary Drisdelle. Permission to republish Pet Birds and Toxic Foods in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.