Dr. Julie Burge, an avian vet in the Kansas City area posted this story in her newsletter. She wants readers to share the information, so here it is for you!

An area bird owner experienced the tragic loss of her two beautiful young Green Wing Macaws this week within 30 minutes of each other. We knew that it had to be an airborne toxin, but it took her 24 hours to figure out what happened.

A family member had pulled an old pancake griddle out of the back of a cabinet and used it to warm some food. The griddle hadn't been used in at least a year and was very old, with most of the coating worn off of the surface. It turned out that the coating had been Teflon, and when it heated up the fumes that were released killed her precious birds within the hour. She was aware that Teflon was unsafe, but did not realize that this old griddle was even in the house. Please don't let this happen to your birds.

That is awful! Birds respiratory systems are very different than ours or other animals. So many things they breathe in can kill them. Spraying aerosol, two examples is air refresher, spray oil, can also cause damage or death to our birds. Thank you for the head's up Connie. I hope your message saves lives!!

Hope all is well with you!

All is well, so far. We are having a major snow event. Right now, we have about 10 inches on the ground. We are sitting here enjoying our birds' companionship.

The little biters are chewing paper strips and flying around. Bella, a rescue bird that we adopted a couple of years ago, just flew, hovered, and changed direction! When we got her, the only place she went when she flew was straight to the ground. Gradually, she learned to fly. She's a joy to watch with her best friend, Cheep.