Candle Wax with conures... Help!!!!

whitniebird

whitniebird

New member
Apr 16, 2012
7
0
Sunny Cali
Parrots
Kijani ~ Cinnamon Green Cheek Conure
Ellie ~ Nanday Conure
Hi all!
New here, but I had a quick question!

I've been spring cleaning all day today, and I had Kijani (one of my conures) out and about every once in a while so that she wouldn't get bored in her cage. I don't know what I was thinking, but I had a candle wax melter out on my desk. Kijani must have thought it was a bath, or thought it was okay to land in. But as soon as she got in it, she got right back out. I noticed the wax harden right away, since she was flying around. Once she landed, I got her to the bathroom and start getting the water as warm and as fast as I could.

There isn't many places to look up on how to get the wax out. You think there would be some things out there with the internet! O':
Birdchannel.com has an article that says to use warm water and dish washing soap (e.g. Dawn, etc.), but only as a last resort.

I haven't done it yet, cause I want to see how she does overnight, but I'm still a little nervous being that she is a year and two months old. She still has wax in her feathers tonight and have tried the best that I could to get whatever out.
And what I've looked up, the scented candles are the worst. Not so sure on the melters, but I'm pretty sure the same goes for that too. Both her legs and belly/tail base smells like sea salt and driftwood (its from the Partylite company). I've given her two baths and I can still smell it on her!

I'm super worried about her, and don't know what else to do beside warm water. Somebody told me to do a hair dryer, but those have teflon in them and would probably make the situation a lot worse than it already is!

Please help! I don't want her to be sick over something that I did.
Thanks~
Whitnie
 
will pray for sure... are there any burns u noticed on the skin due to the high temp from the wax? As for wax, I have read that it's the aerosolized wax, i.e. wax that is in the air from burning it that causes birds the most trouble as it gets into their little lungs like teflon can. Moving forward u might seriously reconsider the use of any wax like that, candle or not. I do know that the colder wax gets the more brittle it becomes so perhaps applying an ice cube to the isolated feathers might help to break it off easier.

just a follow up, I just read that beeswax is a safer way to go if u hafta have candles around birds.

additional findings show that some birds are able to eat wax and have no ill effects from it, however I was unable to find direct statements for parrots eating wax.
 
Last edited:
Just keep bathing her in warm water when you can and watch her for preening. You;ll be able to 'break' the wax clumps down easily and get the smaller bits off from washing. Don't panic, as long as she didn't burn herself when she went into the wax melter then I'm sure all is going to be fine.
 
I'm so sorry that happened. Hopefully, this experience won't jump start a plucking habit. I would separate them if they are friends so your nanday isn't ingesting wax. I wish I knew how to help you! I can just see how easily that could happen with my own green cheek. I have nightmares about toilets and boiling water.
 
Hopefully you can get the wax off. I know it can be a pain to remove from most anything. Feathers must be especially nasty.

And yes, scented candles are bad. Well, all candles. Between the fumes, open flame and, well... wax (as you've now encountered) they're just a no-no. Any perfumed candle of any sort contains chemicals, or essential oils (many of which are as toxic to a bird as any chemical).

If you really like candles, don't burn them anywhere where the fumes can get to your bird. I'd also recommend beeswax. They're a bit more money but they're natural and have a lovely honey scent.
 
whitniebird said:
Hi all!
New here, but I had a quick question!

I've been spring cleaning all day today, and I had Kijani (one of my conures) out and about every once in a while so that she wouldn't get bored in her cage. I don't know what I was thinking, but I had a candle wax melter out on my desk. Kijani must have thought it was a bath, or thought it was okay to land in. But as soon as she got in it, she got right back out. I noticed the wax harden right away, since she was flying around. Once she landed, I got her to the bathroom and start getting the water as warm and as fast as I could.

There isn't many places to look up on how to get the wax out. You think there would be some things out there with the internet! O':
Birdchannel.com has an article that says to use warm water and dish washing soap (e.g. Dawn, etc.), but only as a last resort.

I haven't done it yet, cause I want to see how she does overnight, but I'm still a little nervous being that she is a year and two months old. She still has wax in her feathers tonight and have tried the best that I could to get whatever out.
And what I've looked up, the scented candles are the worst. Not so sure on the melters, but I'm pretty sure the same goes for that too. Both her legs and belly/tail base smells like sea salt and driftwood (its from the Partylite company). I've given her two baths and I can still smell it on her!

I'm super worried about her, and don't know what else to do beside warm water. Somebody told me to do a hair dryer, but those have teflon in them and would probably make the situation a lot worse than it already is!

Please help! I don't want her to be sick over something that I did.
Thanks~
Whitnie
Click to expand...
Hi, thanks for posting about wax in bird wings. My peachface lovebird just did this but only his tail feathers. He had pulled some out so I had some to experiment with to try to get it out before trying it on him. WHAT WORKED EASILY: I put hot faucet water in a bowl with Dawn blue dish soap and stuck his tail end in and washed the wax out. As long as you keep the face out of the soapy water and rinse well the bird will be fine. I wrapped him in a dry washcloth after and snuggled him till he was warm & mostly dry. My bird is handled very easily so that helped.
 
Jeanm said:
Hi, thanks for posting about wax in bird wings. My peachface lovebird just did this but only his tail feathers. He had pulled some out so I had some to experiment with to try to get it out before trying it on him. WHAT WORKED EASILY: I put hot faucet water in a bowl with Dawn blue dish soap and stuck his tail end in and washed the wax out. As long as you keep the face out of the soapy water and rinse well the bird will be fine. I wrapped him in a dry washcloth after and snuggled him till he was warm & mostly dry. My bird is handled very easily so that helped.
Click to expand...

Hi Jean, and welcome to the forums.

Thanks for letting us all know what works with candle wax. :)

Just wanted to let you know that this particular thread is over 3 years old, and the OP (original poster) hasn't been back online in all this time.
 
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