LEAD found in coop and we've been eating the eggs !Freaking out !

[chicksrule1]

I bought some old antique windows with peeling paint for my chicken coop. I am certain they have lead paint on them. I just put a mask on, took a spatula and gently lifted any bubbled paint and left the rest on and just painted over it. If you put harware cloth on the inside framing of your window, then the chickens would not even have access to peck at it.

 

[ivan3]

Just FYI:

HHS/CDC Toxic(s) page - type in your favorite heavy metal or other baddy: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxpro2.html

How to do it if you have the time and materials: http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/76/11/1493.pdf

Article on the O.P.'s original concern (might want to hunt down the actual papers cited - I didn't): http://thewellrundry.blogspot.com/2009/04/chicken-that-laid-leaden-eggs-and-other.html

Worse contamination has always been airborne/water (don't serve lemonade out of old glazed pitchers).
Might want to consider not smoking or working at gas stations during first trimester of pregnancy... (if not lead, then benzene, etc.)

 

[crosbygroup]

When do you find out the results on the children's tests?

I would not worry about the exposure, you discovered it very early.

 

[1acrefarm]

Sounds like very light exposure to me.

 

[crosbygroup]

Any update yet?

 

[urbanolive]

Actually this afternoon my kids have their appointment for the lead test. I had a lead specialist come out and test our home. Because it was built in 1937 and there are children in the house it is a free service. The house was pretty good except for some of my dishes, some antiques, and the paint on our siding. She also tested an egg out of the fridge. The machine only does solids but the shell was negative ! That's a good sign. She did the coop too and the door was positive but I think since we put 5 coats of paint on it it will be alright. We sanded that door right in the middle of the run though!!! When and if it ever warms up I am going to dig out 6-8 inches of dirt and dispose of it. Of course they have dug through all the bedding and eat the dirt. This is probably worse than the windows. Hopefully this weekend , and I'll post my kid's lead test results when I get them- I am dying to know.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
The ova are there, yes -- each one being a bitsy tiny cell with its maternal DNA and an infinitesimally small amount of cell wall and cytoplasm and such. Every day or so, another one is brought out of storage so to speak. But as you can tell from the fact that a single ovum is invisibly small and an egg, as laid, is, well, egg-sized

, the hen's body ADDS quite a lot of material -- like 99.9%ish of the total egg mass -- during the process of "un-parking" and ovulating and egg-shell-ifying the egg.

So while the maternal half of the DNA in the egg was there from the beginning, virtually everything else, pretty much the entirety of the actual egg, is produced by the hen's body in the few days leading up to laying.

This is how things in the chicken's body NOW, like lead or wormer chemicals or the leafy-green-plant pigments that make the yolk so orange, get into the egg.

If you think about it, there is not ROOM in a hen for anything close to the volume/weight of eggs that she lays in a lifetime, ANYhow... just the initial pinpoint-sized cells that make the egg 'go'.


Pat

 

[prov31gal]

Quote:
ooohhh! Good info! I don't know much about heavy metals. To the research-mobile, Batman!

I will see what I can find.

Edited: I hate quoting wikipedia, but:

No safe threshold for lead exposure has been discovered—that is, there is no known amount of lead that is too small to cause the body harm.

better safe than sorry... BUT:

Farm animals such as cows and horses[146] as well as pet animals are also susceptible to the effects of lead toxicity.[120] Sources of lead exposure in pets can be the same as those that present health threats to humans sharing the environment, such as paint and blinds, and there is sometimes lead in toys made for pets.[120] Lead poisoning in a pet dog may indicate that children in the same household are at increased risk for elevated lead levels.[69]

So if the birds don't present symptoms--probably no big whoop?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning​

i find this all so interesting, and i guess i never thought about this, but 1 thing really is just pressing hard on my brain here! since their is no safe level of lead, and believe me if the department of health finds lead paint in a daycare or someplace like that you can bet there will be trouble! here is the thing, there is lead, thermasol , mercurt , formaldahyde, in the vaccines that babies and children are given, so what gives? i dont vaccinate y children for those reasons, but im thinking since they inject your kids with lead chickens are probably ok. i know its way way off topic but i am so perplexed at the inconsistency of it all.​

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Not very inconsistant. Numbers matter. For instance there is iron in your food and iron in your body (your body only works if it DOES have sufficient iron, in fact, for hemoglobin etc), but if you consume too much iron it will kill ya (and the amount isn't that huge, as witness a number of tragic deaths of children from finding mommy's vitamins-plus-iron pills). Or, there is arsenic in your air/water/food right now and the amount is low enough not to have any noticeable effect on you, but if I put enough extra arsenic in your soup, that would be the end of the discussion.

By "there is no safe level of lead", what's meant is that currently the data suggest a continuous relationship between lead intake and physical problems, rather than an exposure threshold below which the slope of the curve is zero. That does not mean that a teensy amount of lead is as harmful as a whole lot of it. It also does not seem to be true of all substances, there are many for which current evidence *does* seem to demonstrate a level below which nothing seems to happen.

You might look up how much <thing of your choice> is contained in a vaccination, then look up (and calculate) how much is in your air, household dust, your food, etc.

I am not arguing for vaccinations nor for casual environmental exposure to toxins; I am just saying, numbers MATTER and should not be ignored just cuz it makes for more-exciting rhetoric.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[Sissy]

Who do you call to have
your home tested for lead.
Our home was built in 1925-30??
did a complete remodel..to metal roof..