MoSunshineGirl said:Thanks to all who have responded to my question about the copper being toxic to birds. I have removed the pieces of copper pipe I had in my birdbaths, because I just don't want to take a chance they could harm birds.
I usually put fresh water in my birdbaths at least twice a day, sometimes more, depending on the temperature. I don't think the water would have a chance to absorb a dangerous /toxic amount of copper, but I do not want to risk that I could be causing harm.

First, to ATP!

And if one changes the water that often I doubt there would be a problem but better safe than sorry right?

I have an email in to Cornell Lab of Ornithology on the subject. I got an automated response saying that the Public Info. Specialist is away from July 5 - 15 so there will be delays in answering inquiries. I will report back here as soon as they respond to me.

Wow! Thanks flaflwrgrl for that! That's something I would not have any idea how to do, or that it could be done! Thank you so much, I will be anxiously awaiting their response!

YVW MoSunshine!
They have a really cool website that I have turned to many, many times. Wonderful info. to be found there & I especially like that they have recordings of the sounds/songs of different birds so you can ID what you are hearing when you can't see them. It's the coolest site next to ATP! ATP is #1 & they are #2.

Check it out here:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/P...

MoSunshineGirl
Thank you for asking this question.
This was a very informative thread to read. Thanks to all contributing to helping us all gain more knowledge.

What about all the public parks with water fountains that people throw pennies into?
I found a dead bluebird in my yard a month ago, and I felt horrible! Don't have a clue what happened to it, it looked perfectly fine... I don't have any pennies in any of the birdbaths.....

Hello Flowerpetal, I know the feeling about finding the deceased bluebird. If you read my original post at the beginning of this thread, you know I also lost bluebirds. The birds I lost also looked perfectly fine. I have had the same pair raising just off my back porch for the last 4 years. I had pennies in the birdbath for the first time last year. There didn't seem to be any problems with them then.
I am strongly suspecting some kind chemical poisoning, but wanted to be absolutely positive that the copper in the water was not to blame. I live in a neighborhood with many neighbors who use assorted chemicals to keep their lawns cosmetically "pleasing".
I have always heard that when something is poisoned it will make them very thirsty. The behaviors I saw, all three birds just sat at the birdbath for hours. I assumed they felt thirsty.
Thank you for sharing your experience!

I'm just speculating, but I know that there are many bird diseases. It might not have been anything environmental.

RickCorey said:I'm just speculating, but I know that there are many bird diseases. It might not have been anything environmental.

There could be thousands of reasons.

Honestly, I don't think the pennies are doing it. There are plenty of copper bird baths out there & there isn't one thing I could find on the internet about anyone with a copper bird bath having birds dying. There is MUCH poison out there though. Aerial spraying of crops, poisons being used indiscriminately on lawns ect.... Have you ever watched while they spray that poison on lawns? They don't take any real care to keep it low to the ground or consider the wind blowing it in others yards. How about it drifting into bird baths? You bet it's possible! My husband & I were renting for 2 years recently & pest service came with the rental. The pest company told me what they apply will kill bugs for a YEAR but of course won't harm anything else. Yeh, right. And they spray it 2-3' up the sides of the house exterior as well as 2-3' out from the house on the ground. If the technician spraying it has to wear chemical proof gloves & boots then what are the birds supposed to wear? And when it rains & that stuff runs off & gets in the puddles & wildlife drinks from those puddles what do you think happens?
My rant for today. Off my soapbox.


And I wasn't honking on you flowerpetal. And WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME to ATP!

I have received an answer! I copy & paste below.
************************************************************************************************************
Hi Ann,



We don't know of any studies that have addressed this. We all drink water that runs through copper pipes every day. It is not nearly as dangerous as 100 other substances that are probably hiding in much of our drinking water.



We would err on the side of caution and not go overboard. Adding Apple cider vinegar is also a trick that everyone seems to swear by (we don’t have any research on this either, but it would not be harmful).



Marc




Marc Devokaitis

Public Information Specialist



Have we helped you out today? Consider becoming a supporter (if you are not one already)!



Cornell Lab of Ornithology

159 Sapsucker Woods Rd

Ithaca, NY 14850

*************************************************************************************************************************
I would certainly stick with the earlier dated pennies to stay away from the zinc. Zinc is certainly harmful to birds! Or just use a piece of copper tubing that is rated for use as water lines for humans.

I have submitted a tip regarding the apple cider vinegar. From all I found about it, you use 1 tsp. per gal. of water or 1 cap full & it has the added benefit of providing vitamins & minerals to the birds.

I plan to experiment to see which works best for me; the copper tubing or the apple cider vinegar.

thank you for sharing the response from the university. I have never heard of the vinegar before! I think i'll put the copper tube back into the bird baths. I have to wonder if it was some kind of genetic thing even. Lots of other birds were drinking there, goldfinches, house finches, robins, and many more. I didn't find any of them dying....
I want to thank everyone who spoke up on this thread and offered their thoughts and advice. I am so glad to have found this site!
Thanks everyone!

YVW MoSunshine! It was a good question & good that you brought it up.

I haven't visited this thread in a while, so forgive me if this has already been posted.
Here is a quote from this link:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Parr...

"Copper is an essential trace element required for hemoglobin formation and is a component of several enzyme systems. Copper is soft metal usually used for plating (not only US Mint cent coins - copper 2.5% plated zinc 97.5%, but also hardware and decorative elements on your cage), kitchen utensils, copper wire, welding. Copper can be potentially poisonous to birds - usually oxidized copper causes troubles - storing acidic food in copper containers or slightly acidic water from copper piping may contribute to elevated levels of this metal in your bird's diet and it's easy to avoid. Copper is a popular algaecide and fungicide (used in commercial and residential pools as well as to spray vegetables and grains to prevent fungus and algae growth)."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/30870...

The article was written for owners of caged parrots, not for wild birds, but essentially it is the oxidized copper which would be a problem to birds, and probably more so to the captive birds than to the wild ones - a piece of pure copper in a bird bath will not oxidize if it's under the water. Copper does not react with water (that's one of the reasons it was used for plumbing) but required oxygen in the atmosphere to oxidize.

I gotta go clean the bird bath now...

A penny newer than 1982 has a very thin copper plating over nearly-pure zinc.

I don't know whether one "new" penny would ever oxidize fast enough to release enough zinc (or copper) to affect birds drinking from a bird bath, but that article says that zinc is more toxic to parrots than copper is.

If the water is pretty acid, metals could oxidize even though relatively little oxygen dissolves in water. The acidity (H+) can react with metals to release hydrogen (H2) and some metal ions. That's another reason to dislike acid rain!

(I think the article was addressing the risk that a parrot could nibble or scrape actual bits of metal into its gizzard where very acid conditions would rapidly dissolve the bits and release a significant amount of metal ions.)

A "new" penny with scratches through the copper would expose some zinc to the water. If the water was a little acid, a little zinc could be oxidized ... but it seems unlikely to be enough to bother a bird.

BTW: if there is a big enough scratch to expose a good amount of zinc, the zinc would tend to dissolve before the copper, because zinc is more electronegative. Like inside-out galvanizing.

Here are some links from some of those discussions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

http://water.epa.gov/drink/con......

some zinc links from higher up in this thread):
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

flaflowergirl said (higher up in this thread)
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Thank you for an all too confusing post. I suggested using a piece of pure copper, not a penny which is copper-coated zine.

When copper oxidizes it does not form zinc, nope, it turns into copper sulfate, carbonate and chloride salts in varying concentrations.

Also, it would take a heck of a long time for the copper, any copper, to sit in water for it to do anything otherwise we would all be replacing our copper plumbing every two months. I am assuming that the good folks here on this thread are changing out the water in their bird baths at least every few days and not leaving it to sit for the months and years it would take for copper to oxidize IN the water.

If necessary, I will remove the post I offered if you think it is not accurate.

I already cleaned my bird bath today; I will go sit and put my feet up now.

@greene Greene, I am positive Rick was not knocking what you wrote in your post. He is just saying (& not necessarily responding directly to you) that pre 1982 copper pennies are not to be feared for this purpose.

I got curious and went looking for information on copper toxicity. One of the first things I came across was an Arizona study indicating that it might be beneficial to use copper instead of stainless steel for processing meats to avoid salmonella poisoning.
http://westernfarmpress.com/ma...
Dunno. Lots of stuff out there.

Right. There are pages or whole chapters of other posts on this subject, on this and other threads. I was continuing those threads (and linking them together) more than I was responding to your particular post.

I added something that I hadn't said as clearly as I wanted to last time I saw this tip.

Your post brought it back into view (thank you), so I added the comment I had been saving for a while.

I could have said "By the way, pennies newer than 1982 are mostly zinc, which is much more toxic then copper, and if the zinc started to dissolve ... yack yack yack."


>> Also, it would take a heck of a long time for the copper, any copper, to sit in water for it to do anything otherwise we would all be replacing our copper plumbing every two months.

I was talking about tiny amounts dissolving that would either bother birds, or concern bird lovers. We didn't find very definite numbers about what the totally safe levels of copper exposure would be for birds.

(Even with zinc and humans, where it's a more serious issue, I recall numbers like 10 mg recommended, , 40 mg probably not harmful, 75 mg maybe harmful or 150 mg probably some chronic effects. That's for big, fat human beings, so the numbers for birds might be much much lower.)

As to city water causing copper pipes to corrode so fast they would need to be replaced: yes, you're very right. Many towns neutralize acid water and pump it around slightly alkaline exactly so that it doesn't corrode pipes as fast and put copper, iron or whatever bad-tasting ions into drinking water.

Even with water from acid rain: you're right about it not eating copper so fast that pipes need replacement frequently. To corrode copper tubing enough to cause a leak and need replacement, acid water would have to eat away something like 30-50 thousandths of an inch. Call it almost a whole millimeter! I think it would taste very funky if it was being eaten away by one millimeter per decade.

http://www.gizmology.net/pipe....

BTW: the issue with toxicity in copper pipes with acid water is more the lead in the solder, if the pipes were soldered. Lead is so much more toxic than copper that a little solder is a bigger problem than long pipes! And yet, Rome city water was delivered in lead pipes and they didn't drop dead in droves.

Maybe they hadn't invented acid rain yet.

Maybe (I'm speculating) the copper metal in our modern pipes encourages lead solder to dissolve because the lead is a little more electronegative than copper. The Romans only had lead in their system, no copper, so there was no "battery" between two dissimilar metals. "Galvanic corrosion" - that's the phrase I was looking for.

Galvanic corrosion!!!! Thanks Rick!!! I've been looking for that phrase for years & years! I learned it in high school & somewhere along the line, I lost the term. How many times have I wanted to say that??? Let me count the times --- nope, too many to count. But just try to explain that term to someone without using the term. Oy! I usually go something like this, "You know, when one type of metal reacts with another type of metal negatively". They look at me like I've lost it. Those people probably wouldn't understand the term if I used it but at least I wouldn't look like a fool. They would just think I was smart.

>> They look at me like I've lost it.

I get that exact same look a lot.

>> but at least I wouldn't look like a fool. * * They would just think I was smart. * * *

I couldn't remember it during the previous discussions. It also helps to say "dissimilar metals" because that sounds a little more like "science" and less like urban legends.

In principle we should be very sad that a couple of three-syllable words have more credibility than a reasoned argument. But if the person you're talking to doesn't remember puttering around with electrodes and beakers in Chemistry class, how can you convince him you aren't just making it up?

If I could remember which is which, I would say "the more electronegative metal is the anode and donates electrons so the less electronegative metal becomes the cathode, and a small current flows, accelerating the corrosion". But which one is the anode and which is the cathode? I remember that "LEO says "GER", so losing electrons is oxidation, but I forget the "more and less" and "anode/cathode" within minutes of looking them up, every time.

Oh, well.

I read a book about embarrassing mistakes that engineers tend to make - like bridges and buildings falling down unexpectedly. Apparently it's often true, and not just a line of BS ... you can nod solemnly and say that you suspect stress-corrosion cracking and be mostly right much of the time and partly right most of the time. No matter what the "real" ultimate cause is, there will usually be some SCC occurring before it actually falls down. And if some engineer forgot to take something sufficiently into account, it will often be poor maintenance and infrequent or spotty inspection. Those result in SCC occuring, and not being caught before the "boom", hence SCC, hence BOOM.

Now being THOUROUGHLY off topic ...