Something really interesting that we’re learning about avian medicine is that “grit” is not normal in a parrot’s GI tract. Even when I was in vet school, I remember hearing that little chunks of metal opacity in a bird’s GI tract (on x ray) were “just grit” and “incidental”. It turns out that is not the case! When these birds with metal opacity were tested for heavy metal toxicity, they came back positive. Mostly lead, zinc, and copper, but even cadmium! Probably other metals too that we’re not testing for too. So it turns out that a lot of these ADR birds that we previously couldn’t find why they weren’t doing well are actually suffering from heavy metal poisoning. Sometimes it’s fairly low level, but birds are so sensitive that it’s enough to cause disease. My practice manager told us about this and now that we know about it, it’s incredible how many of these cases we’re finding. When we send out a lead/zinc test for these birds so far every single one has come back positive. We started stocking CaEDTA because of this new information and we are going through it like crazy because we’re finding so much heavy metal toxicity now that we know what to look for.
It’s not 100% clear where they’re getting the metal from but some of the vets leading the charge on this are making some pretty scary discoveries. Bird toys, cages, perches, and even food have all tested positive for heavy metals in some cases. And that’s not even counting random household items that are too low level to hurt us but more than enough to cause illness in birds. People will legit have no idea where they where exposed, and even insist that they couldn’t have been! And then we test and they come back positive. It’s nuts.
My mind has just been blown by how common this actually is. Knowing about this lets us help a lot more birds that previously would have gone undiagnosed, but still. It’s one of those things that I thought was just being kind of overblown but I started testing when I had no other clear leads. And I kid you not, every single bird with metal opacity on rads that I have tested has come back with varying levels of heavy metal toxicity. Not a single one has come back at 0.
