Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Salmonella and Bird Food

I am sure most readers of this blog are aware of the salmonella contamination at a peanut processing plant in Georgia. Apparently the plant knew about the contamination, too, but sold contaminated food anyway. The salmonella outbreak may have health implications for birds as well, since many commercial suet cakes and seed mixes contain processed peanuts or peanut butter.

CLO's Round Robin blog has a useful summary of what they know about the peanut situation. The post includes a reminder from Project FeederWatch to clean feeders regularly and other advice on preventing disease outbreaks among feeder birds. Cleaning feeders is something that ought to be done on a regular basis regardless of known disease outbreaks.

Birdchick has been asking bird food companies whether any of their products contain peanuts processed at the Peanut Corporation of America. Here is a list of the companies that have said that their bird food is safe.