My budgie saphy

[seagoatdeb]

The fruits and veggies I eat are organic only.you need common sense. The reason I am posting about this is for everyone on this forum. If you have arsemic in your water already, then amy amount is too high. Your statistics are for humans that is not relevant for birds. We all need to research, as our environment gets more poluted we need to keep up

[liz]

I now have well water and it really tastes good but I still buy bottled spring water for my birds. They are just too little to take chances with them. The other critters drink the water I drink and seem to be doing well.

[Pajarita]

The fruits and veggies I eat are organic only.you need common sense. The reason I am posting about this is for everyone on this forum. If you have arsemic in your water already, then amy amount is too high. Your statistics are for humans that is not relevant for birds. We all need to research, as our environment gets more poluted we need to keep up

Organic or regular makes no difference when it comes to arsenic, they have the same levels because it has nothing to do with the fertilizers or insecticides, it has to do with the soil and water and, although you can, up to a point, control what is in the soil, arsenic doesn't really degrade on its own so the only thing you can do is 'move' it (that's why the percolating method of cooking is recommended for the rice). And, as it was used so extensively up until the late 50's, it's still there. And yes, there is arsenic in the water - as well as in chickens, eggs, beef, etc. even in beer, darn it! You can't get away from it, it's everywhere nowadays. As to figures for humans not been relevant for birds... you are absolutely right but, when it comes to birds studies, statistics, what are safe levels, etc we have NOTHING because no studies are done on them, they are all done on mammals. Believe it or not, we don't even know for a fact what are the correct dosages of the medicines avian vets give them, they extrapolated them from mammals dosages and played around with them until they found something that works! So it's basically a choice between using the figures we have or nothing.

[seagoatdeb]

You are partially right. Some is from contaminated soils and water, but there is still more comming from the continued use of arsenic based fertilizers. Rice is contaminated if it is organice or if it is not. But in the case of vegetable it varies. Organic is safer. I grow most of my own vegetables and buy from commited local organic non GMO. I have a room full of sweet potatoes curing right now and i have all the achy muslces to prove it. i only use green hoses to water my garden too.

[seagoatdeb]

I now have well water and it really tastes good but I still buy bottled spring water for my birds. They are just too little to take chances with them. The other critters drink the water I drink and seem to be doing well.

I am filtering my well water, I dont like to take chances with my birds either they are part of my family.

[Wolf]

I have spring water right out of the mountain and I also use a filter on it as you can't be too careful with their or your own health.

[Pajarita]

No, you can't. Because water has a way of traveling long distances underground so, even though there might be nothing nearby that would contaminate it, you can't really be sure.

[Wolf]

I live in the mountains where Christmas trees are a large part of the economy and they use some really nasty chemicals on them. They are supposed to not plant then within a certain distance from the streams and such, but they tend to ignore it here.

[seagoatdeb]

I live in the city and although most of the city has water from the very large lake here, the part of the city I live in has well water. they do put chlorine in it. i filter it for our use. All the peole around me are organcic gardners, but they are terrible with their lawns. The cant stand dandelions and are constantly spraying them with poison. So the greatest source of poison in the area is from their war with the dandelion. Dandelion is one of the healthiest plants there is too.... makes no sense to me. Its a lot of work but I dig mine out by hand and make tea out of the roots. I eat the tender leaves in the spring.

[liz]

I worked with an older lady when I lived in WV. She made dandelion salad for me and it was good. She said the most important thing was to get the first leaves of the year. I asked why the first ones are better. She said they have to be picked early before the dogs pee on them.