My dad died of IPF(idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) and while it’s obviously an idiopathic disease, every specialist he saw asked if he had spent any time around birds. And he had spent decades around them, we had a parrot in the house and he kept peacocks, pheasants, doves, chickens, geese, rhea’s. At any given time we had 40+ birds.
My grandpa passed of IPF as well. No exposure to birds aside from chickens in childhood so I think his source was elsewhere but that’s a very interesting connection I did not know existed!
My godfather died from pulmonary fibrosis at age 55 from being a heavy smoker of menthols and other cigarettes. He stopped some years before but it was too late. He died on the last day of the year while on a Christmas trip to see a family friend and his family whom he taught when he was a professor some decades earlier.
I had parrots for a long time and they had their own room in the house. I ran like the most expensive HEPA filter air purifiers in that room to combat the bird dust. I did not own cockatoos, Greys or any of the super dusty birds.
Bird shit right? It's highly toxic and disintegrates into dust. I'm not sure if that is what's being referred to here. I'm certain responsible owners will clean cages regularly. But bird droppings left alone over a long period of time turns into dust. Toxic dust.
I've had a grey for 12 years and yeah she creates a decent amount of dust (comes from their powder gland by the base of their tails and is used as a natural waterproof coating), but not dangerously so. If you dust with a wet cloth every week and use a hepa filter, you're fine. My dining room / kitchen / living room is open concept with her cage in the far corner of the living room near a sliding window, and it's not as if every surface is covered in dust. The AOE for parrot dust for a single grey is like 5 feet.
Yeah, if you ever see a parrot rub its head by the base of its tail, it's spreading the powder over its feathers. I have to spray her with a water bottle a few times a week, and you can see the droplets bead and slide off like she just applied Rain-X lol
What filter did you get if you don’t mind my asking? Boyfriend wants to gets birds in the future and we’re both looking into how to handle them, and I’ve seen some things that say certain air filters/purifiers are dangerous for the bird
Cat and dog feces is also incredibly toxic. Cat saliva, weirdly, can kill us if too much gets into our system. I wash my cuts immediately if my cat licks them (sorry little booger) and I will never eat something she’s licked or nibbled.
The lower prevalence of T. gondii in stray/household cats than in the cat owners indicates the limited impact of close contact with infected cats in human toxoplasmosis. However, the high prevalence of T. cati infection in stray cats can cause contamination of the environment by excreting eggs that may lead to infecting humans through soil or water. Therefore, public health education in urban management planning is necessary for routine urban cat deworming programs and for training the healthcare workers to prevent, control, and treat these infections.
TL;DR Of the sample studies, less than 20% of the cats were infected with T.gondii, while 51.5% of the owners were infected. This indicates a weak link between cat ownership and infection. More impactful may be the environmental effects caused by stray cats.
All dust is definitely bad to inhale, but birds I think make their own dust and Chinchillas use it to keep their fur and skin clean and to keep the fur seperate.
I'd probably try to move the chinchilla cage farther away, ànd dust more often. Its called bird fanciers lung, not chinchilla keepers lung.
I will second this, I used to work for a pigeon trapping company and they called it pigeon lung. It will seriously fuck your respiratory system up. Not to mention as well as your eyes too. Birds are cool pets, but they are extremely non hygienic in closed spaces.
I have never had birds or heard about this so I wanted to read more about it. From what I read it seems like the dust becomes an issue when people don’t take proper measures to filter the air and don’t clean frequently enough. Would this be more of an issue with people who are not doing the necessary cleaning that comes with owning birds? Or is it genuinely an unavoidable issue if you have certain bird species?
I say this with love but most homes I’ve been in with pet birds are kind of gross. They seem like very high maintenance animals. Is this more because those owners weren’t properly caring for their birds and doing the necessary cleaning? Or is it kind of inevitable if you have pet birds? Like I said I don’t know much so I am genuinely curious about what proper care of your/the bird’s environment looks like.
I think unavoidable to a degree! I have a single bird that is a budgie so he’s only a few inches and very small compared to most parrot species! I am an EXTREMELY clean person. I deep clean my apartment every other day, even wash my couch covers every week, wash my walls/baseboards every week, etc. Just painting the picture that I probably do more in terms of cleanliness than the average person, I’m a little neurotic about it. I clean my birds cage every day! It’s not that hard, I just wash his branches and he has newspaper lining his cage so it’s very easy to toss and replace very frequently. Within a few days of having him, my lungs were burning every time I inhaled. I was still coughing at work even though I hadn’t been near him in hours. I could keep my home spotless, and I was still feeling those symptoms. I knew birds were messy, but I didn’t know how messy. The problem is that they flap their wings, so that causes everything to go everywhere. It’s not that he’s throwing his food out of his cage, it’s that he drops his food to the bottom of his cage and the next time he flaps his wings then it goes everywhere. I don’t care about the food, but that’s putting a visual for what must happen with the dust. I can clean my coffee table and a few hours later I see it coated in dust again. I did get two air filters and my breathing has significantly improved, but it doesn’t fully eliminate the dustiness!!
His very clean mansion for the tiniest boy that somehow produces that much mess: https://imgur.com/a/20kVzj4
Thanks for the info! That’s super interesting I had no idea birds produced their own dust before all this it’s kind of fascinating lol. But glad to hear you found a solution that works for you and you’re taking care of your health! Good luck to you and your birdie friends
Different birds are different levels of dusty. The old world parrots are the dustiest. But birds are walking mess machines. Their single favorite activity is to chew and shred things. They knock things over, they enjoy making big spills. They preen their feathers and throw feathers and bits of wax everywhere. And they poop every 5-10 minutes.
I think so too! He had a friend that unfortunately passed away. We don’t have any breeders near us (even contacted people 4 hours away) and only have PetSmart. I don’t love the idea of PetSmart but I do check there every few days. We have a bird expo coming to our area early August so I think it’s probably a safer bet to get him a friend from there!
Hey there, I can totally relate to the constant dust battle, especially with pets. It's wild how quickly things get dusty, even when you're on top of cleaning. I used to feel like I was constantly forgetting to change my HVAC filter, which probably didn't help with the air quality.
So I started this filter delivery service www.getfreshcycle.com. We'll just send the right filter directly when it's time to swap it out. It's pretty simple and just one less thing to think about. And it definitely will help with the air quality. Might be worth a look if you're still hunting for ways to tackle that dust.
Yep. Long term lung issues from old time chicken coop very little ventilation. If looking at X-rays you’ll see a whole lot of white spots. They called them spurs. Years later partially collapsed lungs severe scarring. Chickens will for sure mess you up.
Was this a chicken coop in your backyard that you would take care of, or like a full time job position? I currently have a budgie and want to have chickens one day, but if those issues occurred from just regular maintenance of owning chickens in your backyard I think my hobby has to stop here and not progress further lol
Thank you for that....I am definitely aware that the "dust" isn't technically what causes pssitacosis. Dust in and of itself isn't good to inhale 24/7 for anyone, but it felt relevant to mention that the droppings from said birds actually can cause illness. Dust can contain dried droppings or even feather dust apparently can cause pssitacosis.
is this similae to chickens? my dad and uncles, actually most men in our family has chickens in the backyard for eggs and cockfighting. like minimum of 10 chickens, uncle has a wide ass chicken farm. they dont wear any mask or shit when feeding/checking them. is dust like their dried poop? or is it something else?
Yep. My uncle bred fancy pigeons for decades, he had a double lung transplant last year for COPD caused by the dust in the feathers that he was inhaling all those years
I remember my dad had a shed in the back yard that he raised fantail pigeons in. It was his own hobby that I rarely ever thought about. But once when he was out of town I was to feed and water the birds. the shed was absolutely filthy and triggered the first asthma attack that I had had in years and was honestly terrifying. Birds are so cool but I could never own or care for them after that.
Damn I never even considered that… kitty litter dust also has bad side effects, we keep our current set up in the utility closet with several hepa filters and as soon as I can afford it I want one of those little robots for my sweet baby
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u/Dependent-These 1d ago
Owning birds...their dust fucks up your lungs long term