BEWARE chicks and teflon!!

[ChickenKatie]

Thought I would share: I recently hatched about two dozen perfectly healthy chickens. They were all killed from the fumes from cooking with teflon (non-stick) pans!! Beware!! I had no idea this could happen, but I have thrown out all my non-stick and this batch of babies, about 1 week old, have had no issues whatsoever! Be cautious when using teflon to cook if you have your brooder in the house!

 

[birdlover]

What a sad thing to have happen! I'm so sorry. I learned about teflon years ago when I kept cockatiels and it was common knowledge on the tiel site that non-stick ANYthing (irons, waffle makers, etc.) can be lethal to birds. Thank you for calling attention to this!!!

 

[tellynpeep]

They are just the "canaries in the coal mine." Teflon fumes are bad for us too! Toss all that non-stick cookware; it's very toxic. There is, I believe, a huge (billions $) lawsuit pending with DuPont over this.

 

[chicklady63]

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I threw all teflon that I owned away years ago and opted for stainless steel. (Aluminum apparently has connections to Alzheimer's disease - it's in deoderant or antiperspirant, I forget which, also). I just thought that the food cooked in them would absorb the bad properties. I certainly did not realize the fumes were toxic that way though...wonder about those fumes on the rest of us living creatures. So many bad things out there now...
Sorry again about your chicks.

 

[jonesgirl]

aww how sad!

Teflon is killer... A human can die from it too, if you end up eating too much of it... ( when it starts scraping off your pan I guess)

 

[warmfuzzies]

What about the eggs?? I have my incubator in the Kitchen, and I always use nonstick pans. I knew this about them, but forgot.

I have not got great hatch rates. I was thrilled, but they werent great. About 50-60% both times. I had a lot of eggs die about ten days both times. I wonder????????

 

[chicklady63]

Sounds like a plausible explanation to me. I have my incubator in the powder room of my master bath as it has the most stable temps in our home (and my dogs can't get to it and accidentally knock the plug from the wall). I always make certain to go elsewhere to spray my hair whenever I am getting ready for work in the mornings. I worry about those fumes as well.

 

[WriterofWords]

I'm sorry that happened to you. How do you know for sure it was your Teflon? I use it all the time and my chicks inside are fine, my animals are fine, we are too. Now before everyone attacks me I'm asking an honest question here, I'd like to know for sure how you can tell that is what killed them.

 

[lisahaschickens]

I accidentally killed a cockatiel I had in college with teflon, which is how I learned about this. Then, when my baby chickies were a week old (on Valentine's Day this year), I was cooking us heart-shaped pancakes (awww!) and the pan started smoking and a little alarm bell went off in my head - OH NO!! TEFLON!!! OPEN THE WINDOWS!!!! I stopped cooking, dunked the pan in cold water, and we ran around venting the house. Luckily all the babies made it, but I was SO scared that I had killed them all while making breakfast. After that, I always remembered and never cooked with Teflon again while they were still in the house. And it is true that scratched teflon puts bad chemicals in our food that we cook as well (the fumes are mostly just harmful to birds). I plan to get a set of the new non-stick ceramic, chemical-free pans that just came out. My mom has one and loves it and it is even more non-stick than teflon! The new pans are expensive, though, so I am holding out to register for them for my wedding

Until then, I just minimize when I use them... but I do still use them a bit.

This is a great post, though. I wish I had thought to post the warning after my lesson learned (years ago) and my very recent scare! Thanks for thinking to share the info!

 

[EweSheep]

Teflon is BAD for birds and humans if you eat the chips off the pans. Too many people keep using those scratched up Teflon pans UGH! Also you can NOT cook Teflon in high heat, only for low and med heat, no more!

I dont have any Teflon and gave them all away. Swap with all my pans for iron skillets, no worries even if you burn food LOL!

This warning has been around for a long time but DuPont dont want to create waves with their pans on recalls.