Lead in ABC blocks

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SQ

Senior Member - Vegan for the animals
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
17,208
Location
central New Brunswick Canada
Crosspost:

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From the bird owner:

I writing this email because I think I need to send out this warning to everyone I know who has parrots.

Gabby started having seizures Friday morning at 6 am then another at 8 am. We rushed him to the vet clinic in Saskatoon and on the way there he had yet another seizure. He had 3 seizures in a small window of time. While at the University he had yet another seizure in front of them.

He would fall on his side and pull his feet up into his chest clench his feet and fan out his tail and wings and scream. His head would also twitch and he would be totally non responsive. The seizures were lasting anywhere from 20 -40 seconds but the recovery time was long. Approximately 5 minutes. They ran several tests and finally he had to be put under anesthesia for radiographs which showed a very small spot in the ventriculus (gizzard) that is believed to be some form of metal toxicity.

He is slowly recovering here at home and I believe the worst is over. He is going for injections 2 x per day for 5 days but so far there has been no seizure activity besides some minor tremors in the head and wing. It has been a long weekend for us and we are both exhausted from all this.

The source of the lead is in the children's ABC blocks...the paint is contaminated with lead. Please do not use these with your birds!!!!!! I believed them to be safe but they are NOT!

If you want you can call me and I can try to explain further.
 
I've never given these to my girls or boys for fear of lead in the paint.
I mean I'm sure there are safe ones, but how would one check?


Thank you for posting this.
 
Jeez. I was JUST thinking about buying some of these for the kids.

THANK YOU for posting this SQ. Thank you.

Can we maybe put this in a more "important" section - maybe news? or something else? I just worry for people that dont check this section of the forum often...
 
Thanks. I will pass this on to my sister who has a cockatiel. I had thought of getting blocks for my gang, but hadn't got around to it.

I wonder if it is just the ones made in China?
 
I know that parrots also get sick from the plastics in the hanging toys as well. I wonder how they were able to pinpoint the blocks?
But in any case, I'm not giving those blocks anymore.
 
I believe they had the blocks analyzed and it came back that the paint contained lead

At this point I wonder if it is safe to give ratties any pet or children's toys that were made in China. If children's toys have lead, how careful will they be about pet toys?
 
I've cut back on Dollarama lately, except for the blankets. Only trouble is that almost everything seems to be made in China these days. I heard on CBC radio that even canned goods that say Product of Canada may contain produce from somewhere else. There are some weird rules about what can be called Product of Canada.
 
I watched the episode on Marketplace about the flaws of the "Product of Canada" movement.. how most of the foods only need to be packaged here or only have a very small amount of Canadian food content. Or something.
 
:rant: That really makes me angry about the lead in children's toys and it is that reason I'm afraid of buying anything like it for my ratties. I've purchased the blocks in the bird section of the pet stores before but after the media made it known about lead in things from China, I stopped purchasing them. I even wonder about other things we have around that could contain lead or harmful chemicals. I hope your bird gets better soon. I'm sorry to hear you had to go this.
 
I heard of this not to long ago and since then have swiched to small cleaned branches of my friends organic apple farm for the girls to chew on.
Can't seem to trust anything anymore not even childrens toys :(
 
could someone post a picture of these blocks, so that I'm clear as to what blocks these are? I have a cockatiel myself and i plan to adopt two girls soon so I want to be sure that i don't buy them anything harmful.
 
I bought some at petsmart that are for small animals to gnaw on... I'm assuming THESE are safe, as they simply are made to look like the children's toy, and are made specifically for pets??
 
Whoa, now i'm worried. My babies have been chewing on a couple of wood ABC blocks for a couple of days now. Gotta get home ASAP!
 
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