Why You Should Not Feed Bread to the Birds

Unknown said:

Monkeycheese - I haven't posted anything until today, since last Saturday, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Neither have I ever questioned anyone's ability to read, although some have a very odd way of interpreting what is written.

Please point me in the direction of any research AT ALL that suggests, in any way, that feeding bread causes angel wing - I would be genuinely very interested to read it. Or is this simple idle gossip and conjecture?

Perhaps you could give us a few links that back your assertions? 

Unknown said:

Monkeycheese - I haven't posted anything until today, since last Saturday, so I have no idea what you are talking about. 

What assertions?

Bread cannot grow wings? That would take quite some doing as you need to understand the principle of protein quality and what limitations that is linked to, and then look at protein quality in wheat.

Slipped wing - unfortunately a very great deal of what is on the web is just repeated over and over - a lot is nonsense because it says directly or implies that it is almost entirely associated with waterfowl - ask any zoo - it is common enough in lots of species if they aren't reared correctly.

ICF website should be easy to find although I have just done a brief search and cannot find the download of their "bible" - CRANES: Their Biology, Husbandry and Conservation - it was not easy to find when I downloaded it a few years back. I could copy and paste, but would you believe me?

I will have a hunt and see what I can find.

Just found the "bible" - digital books - crane husbandry manual, on the ICF (savingcranes.org) website - it redirects to the Patuxant (USFWS/USGS) website.

Clare - my apologies - it was Sunday a.m., not Saturday, although MCs implication that I criticised anything, or him is a bit wide of the mark. I do not see what he is griping about on the "suet thread".

I am realy guilty of feeding the ducks and swans and geese, at my local reservoir and I have never heard of angel wing and after more years than I care to remember feeding them a granary or whole meal loaf every day, plus a bag of corn, I have never seen one bird with angel wing, and not only me feeds them, but I would hate to think I was doing them any harm, I always thought I was helping them get through the winter, they even come to meet me in the car park.

Hi,Ellieloo. I`d say that you`re guilty of doing more good than harm.  :-)   Glad to hear that they`re coming to say hello. Some of my friends do the same but I suspect that its `cupboard love` !   And....They never ever buy tickets for the boats. :-(

I'm fairly sure I remember reading that wholemeal bread is much better than white bread, Ellieloo, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Nice to see you, by the way!

Unknown said:

Unfortunately, this is total nonsense - bread causing angel wing.

So you keep asserting - (1) No one is actually claiming that bread, in itself, causes the problem, and (2) you have provided nothing to support your assertion that feeding of bread does not lead to the condition.

Unknown said:

Angel wing is the premature growth of the wing(s) - they grow too fast, in advance of the rest of the body, particularly the muscles that would hold the wing in place. The wing(s) are bone (calcium carbonate in the main), plus muscles, tendons etc. - protein.

You are assuming that the only reason why the condition develops  is that the wings grow too fast because of excessive protein. Are you unaware that the condition has also been shown to occur, at least occasionally, in species that naturally eat very high protein diets when growing (e.g. Masked Boobies and Goshawk)? In both these examples the condition was hypothesised to be a result of malnutrition, but not because the diets contained excessive proteins. A diet for wildfowl that consisted largely of nutrient poor white bread would potentially be a similar case of malnutrition.

Unknown said:

As implied above, there has been some considerable amount of research into angel wing and that shows that it is caused by excess (high quality) protein consumption in the absence of compensating levels of exercise (which diverts some of a high protein diet into being burnt for fuel/energy).

On the contrary, there has been very little research into the condition - which is why the 2006 & 2012 publications I have given as examples above both say that the cause of the condition is not properly understood. It just happens that the little research that has been carried out (with most published papers seeming to date back to the 1980s or earlier) has generally concentrated on high protein diets - no doubt because wildfowl/poultry keepers wouldn't feed their birds a diet consisting almost exclusively of bread, but had tried higher protein feeds that were intended for pheasants etc. I have been unable to find any studies at all that have even tried to investigate the effects of diets that are almost exclusively nutrient poor foods, such as bread, on wildfowl.

Unknown said:

ICF website should be easy to find although I have just done a brief search and cannot find the download of their "bible" - CRANES: Their Biology, Husbandry and Conservation - it was not easy to find when I downloaded it a few years back. I could copy and paste, but would you believe me?

I will have a hunt and see what I can find.

Just found the "bible" - digital books - crane husbandry manual, on the ICF (savingcranes.org) website - it redirects to the Patuxant (USFWS/USGS) website.

It was very easy to find just from the title (even though you don't seem to want to provide links to back your assertions). It doesn't however seem to contain  anything that supports your arguments.

Do you realise that the statement about the sulphur containing protein content of the diet of growing Crane chicks is based solely on a single piece of research from the 1980s? Research that only looked at growth rates and the incidence of growth defects in chicks that were fed diets that contained all of the nutrients known to be required? This is the paper cited in "the 'bible' ".

.

So no, it is not "total nonsense", it is unproven that a diet of mainly bread causes the condition (to which some birds are likely to have a higher genetic susceptibility), but it is fairly certain that malnutrition, including large enough quantities of food of the wrong kinds, is a leading contributory factor.

The feeding of poor quality foods, such as white bread, should be discouraged (especially during the breeding season) because it is definitely not a food source that contains all of the nutrients that growing birds require - and because this might be one of the reasons why wildfowl in parks seem susceptible to this condition. Or are you going to argue that it is perfectly healthy to feed them exclusively on bread?

Nice to see you too Clare, this is all very technical, Ill just keep feeding them like Ive always done, they havent done bad on it all these years,

I like to think they know me, I can even shout the swans from the other side of the reservoir to come for some food, but realy deep down I know its not me they like its the bag of food I take every day.