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TBD Cause of 11 Bird Deaths

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painesgrey

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Unless @enigma731 is a part of this investigation and not saying so, I feel that it is assumption on their part. Most of us just want to find out the truth.

This entire ordeal is dripping with assumptions on both sides of the fence because there are far too many who are incapable or unwilling to have civil, meaningful discussions.

If people stopped taking dissenting opinions as personal affronts, the discussion would be far more interesting and productive.
 

Garet

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@rocky'smom What assumptions was Enigma making???? No one even MENTIONED Shannon before you did. We were all discussing this particular case, not Shannon's.
 

rocky'smom

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Shannon has be mentioned several times with in this thread. She has been made to sound like a crazy person believing that " something" within the food that she fed her birds killed them, abd even though all sorts of testing as been done, she feels that maybe she has not been told the truth.
It would not be the first time that the government has lied to us about what is in our animals food. I can understand her angst, I want the truth that is why I have called the FDA myself, seeking the truth. If there is a case I will find out. I find it hard to deal with some people that seem to know all the answers before the conclusion.
 

enigma731

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I'm really curious what people think I want, since it's apparently not "the truth."

ETA: And also, the fact that her survey is invalid is not an assumption. Asking for people to report the deaths of birds that ate Zupreem is the definition of a biased sample.
 

Macawnutz

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Let's first remember that we are all fighting for the same cause, we are all on the same team.

Often on AA the staff sees argument when simply, a member is not hearing what they want to hear. Without complete answers and all the facts, none of us are hearing what we want. We are not getting the answers we are seeking and well, we may never know.

What do we know? Nothing is ruled out. People are losing birds and we don't know why. I think I said very early in this thread... Tanya is a very good friend of mine, she was the first to lose birds. When asked what she felt it was she stated the food. She has many years of experience. If that was her gut feeling that is good enough for me but I know her.

We are all fighting the same battle. Stop fighting amongst yourselves.
 

finchly

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Can't that be said of the accusations as well? There hasn't been any confirmation that Zupreem is the cause, yet people still claim it to be.
Amen to that.

I'm really curious what people think I want, since it's apparently not "the truth."

ETA: And also, the fact that her survey is invalid is not an assumption. Asking for people to report the deaths of birds that ate Zupreem is the definition of a biased sample.
Yes... a sample would be more correct if it wasn’t limited to only the zupreem eating birds. If we asked ALL the people on facebook who owned birds to respond about their birds’ deaths, then asked them whether they ate zupreem - that would be the beginning of a statistical sample.

The thing we are trying to to say is that this comes down to scientific / statistical modeling, which has rules and procedures. No one on this forum is blaming Shannon, and I personally do not think she is crazy. I think she’s convinced - but I also believe she’s making some incorrect assumptions. The data that came from her initial testing said there wasn’t anything in the food.

@Macawnutz sorry we posted at the same time!
 

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@rocky'smom No one here called her crazy. I'm sorry if you feel that way. She lost birds, as did others, but it's not good to look at every case and just lump them together. People want more tests, we want to know what is actually going on.

Take the bulk bin one. If we only blame the pellets and not the store, more birds could wind up dying from other brands of pellets the store sells that might also be contaminated and improperly stored.

I'm not saying that Shannon got her pellets from a bulk bin, just so nothing gets lost in translation here. I'm talking about the one specific case with the Macaw.
 

Sweet Louise

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Let's first remember that we are all fighting for the same cause, we are all on the same team.

Often on AA the staff sees argument when simply, a member is not hearing what they want to hear. Without complete answers and all the facts, none of us are hearing what we want. We are not getting the answers we are seeking and well, we may never know.

What do we know? Nothing is ruled out. People are losing birds and we don't know why. I think I said very early in this thread... Tanya is a very good friend of mine, she was the first to lose birds. When asked what she felt it was she stated the food. She has many years of experience. If that was her gut feeling that is good enough for me but I know her.

We are all fighting the same battle. Stop fighting amongst yourselves.
thank you for that. I see everyone wanting to know and having different theories. You can't really convince people to think differently about an emotional issue. Even when the truth comes out, there will be folks who won't believe and say it is "fake news". I appreciate how @Mizzely pretty much just provides updates on where things are at. The peaceful way on this topic is to not try to convince anyone, just provide the information as it comes in and let everyone decide for themselves what to feed their birds, not try to influence in any direction. Read, decide, and move on. Offer support to whoever loses a bird for whatever reason. Losing a bird for whatever reason is traumatic. If it can be prevented, it should. So if you believe what the rescue has to say, you are probably not feeding zupreme and won't be convinced to do so. If you do not believe, then you are probably continuing to feed zupreme and won't be convinced to stop. Everyone is making the best decision they can with the information available and arguing about the information changes nothing.
 

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I don't think it has been here as much, but on Facebook certain groups have been RIDICULOUS. Private matters being dragged through the mud in the name of "discrediting" Shannon and exposing her as a scam artist. I think that is so sad.
 

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So if you believe what the rescue has to say, you are probably not feeding zupreme and won't be convinced to do so. If you do not believe, then you are probably continuing to feed zupreme and won't be convinced to stop. Everyone is making the best decision they can with the information available and arguing about the information changes nothing.

Yes 100 times :)
 

Garet

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@Mizzely That's absolutely horrible! Tbh, I don't think it was the Zupreeme pellets, but there's no reason for anybody to go after her like that. I don't think she's crazy or a scammer, I just think she's grieving and desperate for an answer.

As an aside, I don't feed Zupreme. Mostly because I can't find it here, and my birds already have their favorite brands. Some people are worried that there's something else to blame and want to know what the culprit is one way or another. If it's not Zupreme, some of us may have the actual killer in our houses.
 

enigma731

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Some people are worried that there's something else to blame and want to know what the culprit is one way or another. If it's not Zupreme, some of us may have the actual killer in our houses.
Yeah, that's a big part of my investment in this. I don't use it either. But when I say "look somewhere other than the food" it's not because I want to defend Zupreem, it's because I'm worried that the actual culprit is being missed because of all the focus on the food.
 

finchly

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Yeah, that's a big part of my investment in this. I don't use it either. But when I say "look somewhere other than the food" it's not because I want to defend Zupreem, it's because I'm worried that the actual culprit is being missed because of all the focus on the food.
Yes - and I believe that is the fear most of us have. What killed them, adn could ours be next. :(
 

jmfleish

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Let's first remember that we are all fighting for the same cause, we are all on the same team.

Often on AA the staff sees argument when simply, a member is not hearing what they want to hear. Without complete answers and all the facts, none of us are hearing what we want. We are not getting the answers we are seeking and well, we may never know.

What do we know? Nothing is ruled out. People are losing birds and we don't know why. I think I said very early in this thread... Tanya is a very good friend of mine, she was the first to lose birds. When asked what she felt it was she stated the food. She has many years of experience. If that was her gut feeling that is good enough for me but I know her.

We are all fighting the same battle. Stop fighting amongst yourselves.
To be fair, Tanya first thought it was cuttlebone and would have never questioned the food had it not been for a phone call from Shannon, at least that's the way I understand it.

But I do agree, we all just want an answer, so we are looking for the same outcome. The problem with the updates we are getting is that they are all coming from Shannon and like it or not, Shannon does seem to have some kind of weird agenda going on. I don't know what that is, but she is definitely not being rational and we aren't getting the total picture from her. She hasn't been forthcoming from the beginning and that's what bothers me the most. Based on the information that we have gotten from her so far, too much does not add up.

She had one necropsy done and that necropsy reads that the death of that bird most likely was an inhaled toxin. Of course it cannot rule out an ingested toxin, but it highly points to an inhaled toxin. She has had the food tested and there were no known toxins found in it. All three foods were tested by the manufacturers and they found nothing in them either. There have been no other deaths that can be linked directly to the food. Yes, Tanya had deaths around the same time that seem very similar but I have to reiterate the fact that without a necropsy, we cannot say that they were due to the food. At this point in time, the only thing we can say is that they were coincidence. The same goes for any deaths of birds that ate Zupreem and reported back to Shannon that stated their bird died. Unless necropsies were done and the food was tested, it's nothing more than another bird death. There is no correlation between these deaths and the food if we do not have a necropsy to back up the death of the bird. This is called science people.

I'm not trying to muddy Shannon's name, I'm not saying I have the answers, I'm just going on basic scientific evidence. It's not that hard to do. Follow the evidence...there isn't any. There is nothing there to link any of this up. When there is, if there is, I'll happily say that I am wrong, but for now, there isn't and I'm really surprised that Shannon isn't looking at a huge law suit from Zupreem at this point. If it were my food and it were me going through this, I'd be slapping her with a huge law suit! As a business owner who does offer food, I would be more than really upset at this point. Not to mention all the people in the avian community she is scaring to death.

The final point I want to make, yes, it is your personal judgment to make, feed Zupreem, don't feed Zupreem. Make your own decision based on what you think is best but remember, if you really want to go down this rabbit hole and you really think it was the food that was the cause of these birds' deaths, there is nothing to state that it was Zupreem that was the culprit! There were three different foods that were involved and none of the came back as testing positive, so if you truly want to believe it was the food, it could have been any one of them.
 

Macawnutz

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To be fair, Tanya first thought it was cuttlebone and would have never questioned the food had it not been for a phone call from Shannon, at least that's the way I understand it.


Ingestion is what she believed. I'm not naming any specific item. The early days it really seemed to be ingestion VS inhaled toxin being questioned.

IMO the original stories did not seem likely to be inhalation cases. Too sporadic in which ones passed, more large birds than smaller birds. Different rooms with different outcomes. Birds housed in closed glass cages passing and some from the same cage not. Possible but not plausible. Of course that is only my opinion of the original story. I have been following this less and less as the drama and divide is ridiculous.
 

jmfleish

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Ingestion is what she believed. I'm not naming any specific item. The early days it really seemed to be ingestion VS inhaled toxin being questioned.

IMO the original stories did not seem likely to be inhalation cases. Too sporadic in which ones passed, more large birds than smaller birds. Different rooms with different outcomes. Birds housed in closed glass cages passing and some from the same cage not. Possible but not plausible. Of course that is only my opinion of the original story. I have been following this less and less as the drama and divide is ridiculous.
I had the UW look at the one necropsy and they said it was probable inhalation because of all the severe damage to the lungs. I know other people have done the same thing and other vets have agreed. I'd have to go back and read to see the birds involved but wasn't the necropsy on a U2 and there was a GWM that died and some Conures, so it was a mix of sizes? All rescues so there was no way of knowing what their histories were...they could have been compromised to begin with which is why they didn't make it while some did. Size may have nothing to do with it. It's all speculation without necropsies. I think what bothers me the most is because there were three foods involved, all of them coming back from testing with no known toxins found, why is just Zupreem being blamed? Higgins is cozying right up to Shannon now too which doesn't put her in the best light...
 

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I had the UW look at the one necropsy and they said it was probable inhalation because of all the severe damage to the lungs. I know other people have done the same thing and other vets have agreed. I'd have to go back and read to see the birds involved but wasn't the necropsy on a U2 and there was a GWM that died and some Conures, so it was a mix of sizes? All rescues so there was no way of knowing what their histories were...they could have been compromised to begin with which is why they didn't make it while some did. Size may have nothing to do with it. It's all speculation without necropsies. I think what bothers me the most is because there were three foods involved, all of them coming back from testing with no known toxins found, why is just Zupreem being blamed? Higgins is cozying right up to Shannon now too which doesn't put her in the best light...

Necropsies were not done on all the birds, can't take that back so this is what we got.

I'm looking at her original video, the layout of the house. It really did not seem an inhaled toxin would have that outcome but we don't know. How many necropsies have you had? They are often inconclusive, like biopsies... ;) ugh.

The cozy higgens/zupreem crap... politics Jen. If any contamination happened it could have come from anywhere. Food, bowls, hands, bags... could have been left over dishwashing liquid in the serving bowl for all we know. Point is now... we are not going to know. The evidence is long gone.

Hindsight is 20/20
 

Hankmacaw

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I'm looking at her original video, the layout of the house.

In addition to the layout of the house, there was no means of air circulation between closed rooms. Their heating system was a boiler in the basement with radiators on the top floors - no forced air. Both of my birds had swollen damaged lungs - not from external toxins, but from toxins produced by fungus and or bacteria.

I'm saying, and always have, that it is not known what caused this die off, but nothing including contaminated food can be excluded. Nothing can be excluded, so everything must be included.



 

jmfleish

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Necropsies were not done on all the birds, can't take that back so this is what we got.

I'm looking at her original video, the layout of the house. It really did not seem an inhaled toxin would have that outcome but we don't know. How many necropsies have you had? They are often inconclusive, like biopsies... ;) ugh.

The cozy higgens/zupreem crap... politics Jen. If any contamination happened it could have come from anywhere. Food, bowls, hands, bags... could have been left over dishwashing liquid in the serving bowl for all we know. Point is now... we are not going to know. The evidence is long gone.

Hindsight is 20/20
I do necropsies on every bird I lose because I want to know what's going on. If the food they ate was contaminated, it had to come from somewhere. They didn't just eat the food that was contaminated from the bowls or the bags or the hands and not have it on the food. Air is tricky, it can go anywhere. You are much more likely to have something in the air that you can't detect than something on the food you can't detect. Nothing in our house is ever hermetically sealed. The lungs were severely damaged, most likely an inhaled toxin. Even the necropsy and histo said that...they said they couldn't rule out ingested poison but said it was most likely inhaled. Several vets said that's what it looked like. I can't believe people want to keep blaming this solely on Zupreem. Even if you want to blame the food, why would you single out Zupreem??? Why does Shannon keep on insisting it's Zupreem? At the very least, the best you can do is say it's one of the three and there is no proof of that, none at all. If it was an ingested toxin that could have come from anywhere, how do you know it wasn't something that came from her house then? The whole thing makes absolutely no sense. At the very least, you can't just blame the food, especially not just one brand.
 
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