listerine in Canary bath water

[lem2bert]

Hi Everyone. The other night I was glancing thru the canary forum and came across a post that some canary owners were putting listerine in the their Canarys' bath water. I was wondering if any members do this still ? The members that did this said it was good for the feathers and the legs. This post was a couple years old.

[cindy]

this is an old method... actually it is not really recommended since listerine contains alcohol and should not be ingested, or gotten in the eyes.... look at the MSDS sheet for Listen and on the label...it is not meant to be swallowed. Also contain other ingredients that should not ingested.....

https://www.listerine.com/mouthwash/ant ... ngredients

inactive ingredients
Water
alcohol (26.9%)
benzoic acid
poloxamer 407
sodium benzoate
caramel

active ingredients
Eucalyptol 0.092%
Menthol 0.042%
Methyl salicylate 0.060%
Thymol 0.064%

[Babs _Owner]

lem2bert

I cant imagine it being good for any bird. Oh wow.

[cindy]

http://www.officedepot.com/pdf/msds/134941.pdf

SECTION 3 - HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION ... continued
Statements of hazard FLAMMABLE!
MAY CAUSE EYE AND RESPIRATORY TRACT IRRITATION.
THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS ETHANOL WHICH CAN CAUSE
LIVER CHANGES, CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM EFFECTS,
AND BIRTH DEFECTS IN THE DEVELOPING FETUS.

Eye effects - May cause eye irritation.

Skin effects - Not a skin irritant.

Inhalation effects - May cause respiratory tract irritation. Exposure to high concentrations may cause irritation, headache, drowsiness and symptoms of drunkenness.

An Occupational Exposure Limit has been established for one or more of the ingredients (see Section .

Ingestion effects - Ingestion of large quantities may cause may cause headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and symptoms of drunkenness.
See 'Statements of hazard' and/or 'Other potential health effects' in this section.

Other potential health effects

Chronic ingestion of ethanol has been associated with an increased
incidence of cancer, liver cirrhosis, and congenital malformations

[lem2bert]

cindy@Babs

Actually that is exactly what I was thinking, about getting it in their eyes or ingesting in . Thank-you so much ladies for the replies. Cindy thanks for the ingredients listed, I do not even use listerine and now I know I would not use it for the birds bath water. Thank-you again.

[Sally]

Listerine was commonly used years ago for all kinds of things with birds, often just to make the feathers look better for show. Remember, there didn't used to be companies like Morning Bird, Bird Care, etc. Breeders used all kinds of concoctions made up of ingredients they bought at the drug store.

My thinking is that many of those products really weren't too terrible, or birds would have been dying left and right and the breeders would have stopped using these products. Today, we have much better choices, but you will still find breeders from the old school using many of these products.

My parents bought a mynah back in the 70's. At that time, there were no special diets available at the pet shops, no internet, so they did as they were told by the pet shop--they fed the mynah kibble they made from dry dog food they ground up. Moistened it with water, and that was his primary food, supplemented with other things too, but dry dog food was the basis of his diet. Today, there are lots of choices in food. Unfortunately, now we have the right diet, but you can't find mynahs for sale!

[cindy]

It is not meant for ingestion and can cause some issues... why risk it? If it should not be ingested by humans you should not make it available for a bird to ingest. Even in bath water, birds will groom and ingest this.

As Sally said there are other options, bird safe products out there....then again there is always clean fresh water. Human products and old remedies were used way back when because there was nothing else on the market like there is today..... birds back then also did not live as long as they do now. We have come a long way in finding out what is safe and unsafe for pet birds and there is a wide range of avian products and meds.

[cindy]

Listerine was commonly used years ago for all kinds of things with birds, often just to make the feathers look better for show. Remember, there didn't used to be companies like Morning Bird, Bird Care, etc. Breeders used all kinds of concoctions made up of ingredients they bought at the drug store.

My thinking is that many of those products really weren't too terrible, or birds would have been dying left and right and the breeders would have stopped using these products. Today, we have much better choices, but you will still find breeders from the old school using many of these products.

My parents bought a mynah back in the 70's. At that time, there were no special diets available at the pet shops, no internet, so they did as they were told by the pet shop--they fed the mynah kibble they made from dry dog food they ground up. Moistened it with water, and that was his primary food, supplemented with other things too, but dry dog food was the basis of his diet. Today, there are lots of choices in food. Unfortunately, now we have the right diet, but you can't find mynahs for sale!

I know two breeders in Florida that have them if you are looking Sally!!!

[lem2bert]

Sally

My grandmother had a mynah bird and a little dog years ago and she use to feed it whatever she fed her dog, and it lived for years. That was a memory I had not thought about in a long time, thank-you Sally for bringing that memory back to me . I have never seen one of those for sale, my uncle had purchased it for her in the 1960's.

[Maleficum]

Sally lem2bert

That's really interesting. In one of my older bird books they recommend giving dog kibbles to parrots as a base food and then veggies and fruits (it was before bird pellets got on the market).

And mynahs are a bird that popped up on the sale sites here in Sweden only last year and it looks like its getting more popular because I see more and more for sale now (even if it's not that many compared to other birds).

Before that I only seen 1 in a pet store many years ago when I started with birds (like 20 years or so) and 1 living in a plant nursery also a long time ago. And those was a different kind of mynah from the once for sale now.

[cindy]

We had one also, never used dog food kibble... mom took care of the feeding. Loved that bird, what a character!!

I was a vendor at the Orlando show, had both breeders of mynahs at my table talking with me, one of them had a young one on his shoulder. That was a couple of years ago.

[Sally]

I know two breeders in Florida that have them if you are looking Sally!!!

I know there are a few out there, but since they run in the 4 figures, they are out of my price range! I loved Sammy, my parent's mynah.