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[ChrisnJulie]

Does anyone get Parrot mag ?
I've just been reading an article about tomatoes , its quite interesting .

There was a cockatoo that was vomitting blood , after being examined by an avian vet it was discovered that the bird had stomach ulcers . Tomatoes were identified as the cause after a careful look into his diet .This particular vet thought it was because of the acidity of the tomatoe , but ....... tomatoes have the same acid pH as apples , blackberries , strawberries , apricots and a few other types of berry . So another vet looked into this more carefully and he came up with this explanation;
Tomatoes are from the nightshade family which contain a very active metabolite of vitamin d3 . When birds have excess amounts of this vitamin its causes them to absorb too much calcium which results in abnormal deposits of calcium in soft tissue , ligaments , and tendons . It also affects veins and arteries and causes osteopetrosis .

When you think about it , whats the only thing you can grow in the garden that birds wont touch .......tomatoes .
What are people told not to eat if they have rheumatoid arthritis (inflammation of the joints)........tomatoes
Even when tomatoes are cooked they still contain 50% of this enzyme .
I certainly wont be giving Teddy tomatoes as the scientists dont know which parrot families are affected the most by this find .
Maybe Irina has some thoughts on this .

[lovebirds]

my thoughts are - the parrot would have to eat a whole load of tomatoes to get a stomach ulcer and what does stomach ulcer has to do with calcium absorption? I've never heard of vitamin D in tomatoes, but if it was true then it would be ideal for African Greys as more often than not Greys are calcium deficient as we know, due to lack of that vitamin D.

As with a lot of things - in moderation it wouldn't harm. Overdoing any one food is a bad idea.

[Bob]

TOMATO!!! (said in a silly Irish accent)

Hope this helps Julie 

[lovebirds]

that is super helpful, Bob! 

[lovebirds]

here is an article (an abstract) explaining that the metabolite of vitamin D is found in the plant itself but not in its fruit (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8768317), and it is the plant which is very toxic and has a strong smell to ward off insects, etc., not the fruit. Also peppers are part of the nightshade family, so are potatoes, so if excluding tomatoes then it makes sense to exclude peppers too from the diet, though i don't see the reasons for it.

[ChrisnJulie]

Yes totally agree .
It goes on to say that (and I quote)

Many of the nightshade family have the ability to block the activity of an enzyme called cholinesterase making them cholinesterase inhibitors. When it is blocked the bodys ability to control muscle movements is disrupted resulting in twitching , trembling,paralised breathing or convulsions . In gastrointestinal tract these alkaloids have been shown to produce inflammation , ulceration and the poops !
I personally wont be feeding Teddy tomatoes , I know the other nightshade varieties are ones that we readily give and they will be small portions

[lovebirds]

after a small research it appears that the largest source of cholinesterase inhibitors are pesticides and a few other plants, but not tomatoes (I assume the plant contains quite a lot but not the fruit, probably only trace amounts) http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/cholinesterase/exposure_history.html

so based on that it is worth cutting out all non-organic foods either.

I find it a bit ridiculous as tomatoes were blamed for the ulcer, it sounds very narrow minded on behalf of the vets to just brand tomatoes poisonous because if it was true there would be a lot more cases like that one! Especially considering all said above about vitamin D and sources of cholinesterase inhibitors.

Digby doesn't eat tomatoes anyway, but I don't think anyone offering a bit once in a while should be worried about them (that only applies to properly fully ripe tomatoes, green ones or green-ish are no good).

[ChrisnJulie]

Oh just me humour please !

I was having a break from doing a 3 page assignment on genital warts and the HPV vaccine  !  

 


I think the tomatoes were a daily part of the cockatoos diet !

[Rachel.]

They probably only ever gave it tomatoes and nothing else
Mine both like them but I don't give very often cos the seeds squirt everywhere and dry on to stuff then pull the paint off when I scrub it !!
Hope it's going well with the genital warts 

[ChrisnJulie]

Cheers Rachel .

Warts are finished , onto something else , HIV , great !   

[lovebirds]

ohhh yuck!!  Hope you are not about to have dinner too 


I do wonder how many tomatoes you need to give to cause such problems. It's like I read a story about a parrot who died of garlic poisoning but it ate something like a whole bulb in one go and ate loads daily  this is pretty much the only or one of very few documented case of garlic poisoning in birds.

[lizduncan]

Bet that bird stank (before it died obviously)