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Herbs

Talk about bird illnesses and other bird health related issues. Seeds, pellets, fruits, vegetables and more. Discuss what to feed your birds and in what quantity. Share your recipe ideas.

Herbs

Postby mmeager » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:24 am

Just wondering on members opinion in regards to feeding our parrots herbs, at this stage I have not fed my IRN any herbs from my garden, as I would never feed him anything I wasn't certain on.
I have done research on the net, and most herbs seem to be ok from what I have read, but the internet seems to be so full of controversial ideas and thought's, especially about parrots. For example most research states that parsley is good for our parrots, however I have read many times here not to feed our parrots parsley, same for meat.
Personally I would prefer to take the advice from experienced members here. So I am interested in your thoughts.
I don't have a lot of herbs growing, but here is what I have.
Sage
Rosmary
Parsley
Thyme
mint
lemon balm
Bay leaf
comfrey
Nasturtium

So what is ok and what isn't? Are these herbs beneficial to our birds, or is there really no point in bothering with them?

One other question, is a hot chilli I have growing, it is fine for human consumption, but I'm not certain if its ok for birds. Its called "Cha Cha Chilli" (Capsicum annuum f1) Its heat rating is 7.5 out of 10, although I'm led to believe this means nothing to birds. Here is a picture of the chilli, can anyone verify if its ok for a bird or not?
20170116_191512 (Mobile).jpg
20170116_191512 (Mobile).jpg (136.32 KiB) Viewed 8215 times
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mmeager
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Re: Herbs

Postby ParrotsForLife » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:37 am

Your right, If we had a chilli eating competition with Parrots they would win lol, Im not really sure which herbs are unsafe and I'm sure they do have benefits but I have never fed them.
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Re: Herbs

Postby Pajarita » Tue Jan 17, 2017 11:47 am

I regularly use herbs as flavoring for my birds gloop. Of the list you gave, I use sage, rosemary and thyme but I actually use oregano and basil much more often. I don't ever feed my birds parsley for the same reason that I don't feed them spinach or collard greens: they are too high in oxalic acid (parsley has, by far, the highest content of oxalic acid of all the herbs and vegetables). Bay leaf is a very strong laxative (you use the leaves to flavor sauces but you don't really eat them). I don't know about mint because, as I don't like it, I don't even have it in the house. I only use Lemon balm in teas, I don't think you would eat it just like that. Comfrey is great herb for healing (as in a poultice) but I would not feed it to any of my animals. Nasturtium buds and flowers are edible and I am sure parrots would enjoy them very much because they are peppery. Any kind of chili is good for parrots (mine eat them fresh and dried mixed in their gloop) but be careful of kissing the birds upper beak after eating it because the 'heat' remains long after they finish (this happened to me the other day and, as I don't eat anything with 'heat', it was real bad :lol: )
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Re: Herbs

Postby Bird woman » Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:46 pm

I have a bucket of what is called herb salad from twin beaks that is in dishes all around foraging areas they can pick what they want. Anyone else use this product? BW
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Re: Herbs

Postby Pajarita » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:11 pm

I never have and never will. The product is a gimmick. It does not prevent anything and, in my personal opinion, can cause harm in the long run.
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Re: Herbs

Postby Bird woman » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:47 pm

GREAT NOW IVE WASTED MY MONEY AND GET TO FEEL STUPID AGAIN. JUST GOT IT ABOUT 2 WEEKS AGO THOUGHT I WAS ON TO SOMETHING AND OF COURSE I GOT THE JUMBO EXPENSIVE BUCKET! :violin: BW
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Re: Herbs

Postby Wolf » Thu Jan 19, 2017 8:51 am

Gimmick or not, there may be some herbs in in that are not bad for your bird, so all may not be lost. I do not know of any studies letting us actually know what herbals are good for our birds and which ones are not, it is even hard to get good reliable information concerning herbal for humans. I would think that your best bet would be to check out some of the better nutritional sites ( of course they are for humans) to see what the nutritional values for these herbs are and go from there. These sites may say that this herb is high in iron, which is bad for our birds so you would know to not feed that herb. That is how I would approach this.

The bird industry is very poorly regulated as is most of the pet industry and this allows manufacturers to make just about any claim that they want to even if they know that what they are promoting is bad for the bird. Have to be extremely careful and research everything before or you can be taken advantage of, they know how to make it all sound so good. They prey on your emotions and desire to give your bird the best that you can, that is not your fault.
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Re: Herbs

Postby Pajarita » Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:22 pm

The herbs in the Herb Salad are not for flavoring, Wolf, but, supposedly, as prevention of medical issues - only there are only two that work that way (milk thistle and dandelion -if what they use is the root and not the entire plant because they don't say). The thing with herbs is that even though they are natural, they have medicinal properties, too and need to be respected as such.

The Herb Salad has:
dandelion - good for liver cleansing if it is the root but they don't say.
milk thistle - again, good as a liver tonic and cleanser but it needs to be an extract and they don't say if it is or not.
red clover: it has a high phytoestrogenic effect and it thins the blood - it is also believed to be good for cancer and as an anti-inflammatory but scientific evidence does not support this.
wheat grass: very nutritious: vitamins, amino acids and chlorophyll - all good things but you are better off giving the birds fresh food than feeding them just a bit of dried wheat grass
garlic: good antibacterial and an immune system booster but it's better if you give it fresh as flavoring in soft food
thyme: it's good for colds but it's also a diuretic which birds should NEVER get
parsley: way too high in oxalic acid for birds to consume regularly
lavender: good for calming but it's more the scent than the ingesting of the actual herb
marshmallow: 100% contraindicated with liver disease and it also absorbs liquid disproportionally contributing to dehydration
pau d'arco: this is not bad (it has quercetin and immune system boosters) BUT only the bark works and it should not be ingested, it's always used in decotions or infusions.
plantain: again, not bad, it's astringent and can be used for treating diarrhea BUT it needs to be infused.
chickweed: again, good herb (I raised my kids on an herbal tea which had chickweed, linden, star anise and chamomille) but it needs to be infused because otherwise, it acts as a diuretic (the second one found in the mix and a no-no with birds).

Gotta go now but I will continue tomorrow with the list (more bad to come :D )
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Re: Herbs

Postby Bird woman » Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:13 pm

I think the idea of herb salad was the pieces are large enough for the birds to only consume what they need. Now we could get into a huge debate about that ,sighting that these things aren't natural to the housed parrot and not recognizable to them. Who knows if we had it all figured out perfectly there would be no need for any discussion :D on another note I've been browsing through health and nutrition posts from the beggining of this forum and it is pretty apparent that feeding our fids has come along way. It never ceases to amaze me how opinions change on things the more we learn and experience and we would have swore we had it right the first time. :lol: BW. Great to have the forum !!!!
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Re: Herbs

Postby Pajarita » Fri Jan 20, 2017 12:04 pm

I can go over all the other herbs they list as ingredients and tell you about them but the point is that:

1. There has never been a single species of bird that has been documented self-medicating.
2. Some of the herbs there can be consumed by themselves but most of them need preparing either in a decotion or in an infusion and given in a methodical manner and with a certain concentration.
3. Why give a bird something that is going to make its thyroid produce more hormone when the bird doesn't have a slow thyroid? Why give a bird a parasiticide if it doesn't have parasites? Why give a bird a blood thinner if the bird has no cardiovascular problems? Why give it three different diuretics when birds should not ever get any? Why give it an herb that helps the liver alongside another that messes it up? See where I am going?
4. And what is the guarantee that what the woman says it's there, actually is? For all any of us know, she could be chopping up grass from her backyard and putting it there...

I once posted the same critique in another forum and somebody who was using this product must have contacted the woman who replied to me but, although she claimed to have had herbal training, she never told me (even though I asked her more than once) under whom she had trained and couldn't actually answer any of my questions and, instead, kept on repeating the same story about this man who, having sick finches, had put a bowl of plain water and a bowl of medicated water in their cage and claimed that the sick birds drank from the medicated one. Of course, the fact that nobody else saw this and that this was not in any way scientific proof didn't seem to matter to her. So, in my personal opinion, the woman went to the internet, looked up a number of herbs uses, decided on the ones that looked good and made this mixture up without actually knowing anything about herbs because no herbalist would ever put something like this together! It's pretty much a herbal abomination :lol:

Mind you, I use herbs and swear by them! I come from a third world country where alternative medicine is common, and from a family that has a herbal 'history' -my great grandmother was known for her knowledge, one of my great uncles owned the largest herbal store in the country and I learned from my grandmother and him. Him and his family lived in the back of the store and he had the most wonderful back room -between the store and the family areas- with super high ceilings and one of the long walls covered by little wooden drawers all the way up to the ceiling. It was dark and cool in there, it smelled wonderfully and I LOVED rummaging in it, opening drawer after drawer and looking in them). I have used herbs my entire life and one of the very first things my kids learned to drink was a herbal tea made out of linden, chamomile, chickweed and star anise - the daughter that lives in USA still asks for the tea I used to make them when they were sick with a cold or the flu whenever she has a cold. And I add herbs to my birds gloop every single day but I respect them and would not just give my birds something that they don't need.
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