Don't Feed Birds Steady Bread Diet

Be an angel, don’t feed birds - A steady bread diet can deform waterfowl wings

When Pat Phillips’ grandchildren were visiting for Christmas, she decided to take them out for one of Eugene’s favorite activities: walking around Alton Baker Park and tossing bread scraps to the resident ducks and geese.

They had just arrived at the park when her husband read a sign posted by the water’s edge.
“It was so sad,” Phillips said. “We had already thrown some bread crumbs, but we took the rest of the bread back to the car.”

The new sign in Alton Baker Park explains the prevalence of so-called “angel wing,” a condition marked by a deformed wing and spindly feathers that poke out at right angles. When a young bird eats calorie-dense, nutritionally poor foods — like bread — the growth of its feathers outpaces the development of its wing bones. Gravity pulls the heavy feathers down, and the growing bones twist outward, resulting in the twisted wing. Bandages and physical therapy can correct the condition in young birds, but it is incurable in adults, and affected birds lose the ability to fly.

By Shelby Martin
The Register-Guard

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