Let me just emphasize this again from the point of view that I used to have...I grew-up in a house full of birds...mostly Budgies, Cockatiels, and Green Cheek/Sun/Jenday/Nanday Conures, as that's what my mother bred, and we have a CAG that we brought home when I was 9...We also had all kinds of poultry/game birds, such as chickens, ducks, pheasants, quail, chukkars, etc. And I had no idea about foods high in Vitamin C either, really not until I got into grad school specifically studying Animal Health Science (I got my Master's and was planning on going to U of Penn Veterinary School, but money ran out, so I took a research position at The Animal Diagnostic Laboratory/Avian Influenza Laboratory at Penn State instead, to make some money)...I started out working in the testing department, testing samples sent in from all over the country from farmers, veterinary offices, and breeders of all types of animals...When I went to the Avian Influenza Lab (same as the Animal Diagnostics Lab, but in a building across the parking lot) it was during the huge Avian Influenza outbreak we had in the US back in the early 00's, if you remember that. And so the long-time staff of the Avian Influenza Lab were all completely overwhelmed with handling the literally tens of thousands of eggs being sent-in by farmers from all over the country, just palettes and palettes of eggs that they had to test, which is a 3-step process and takes forever to do...So my job was doing all of the every-day testing sent-in mostly by Veterinary Offices across the country, doing PCR, ELISA, Microscopy, Cytology, etc. The Incinerator at Penn State is attached to the lab, so typically we would either get samples sent-in by Vets who performed their own necropsy and would collect tissue and fluid samples to send us, or they would send the whole bird if the owner wanted them cremated after the necropsy, and after I would do the necropsy and collect all of the tissue and serology samples I needed, I would take the bird to the incinerator and perform their cremation, collect the ashes in the burn box, and prepare them to be shipped back to the Vet's office for the owner.
Doing necropsy on parrots was a very hard thing for me at first, and I had done human cadaver lab twice, once in undergrad and once in grad school, and that didn't bother me as much as doing necropsy on someone's pet parrot...Or cremating them...But the point of this whole story is I cannot tell you how many parrots I saw that died from either Fatty Liver Disease or Iron Toxicity of the Liver...These two diseases were by-far the main causes of untimely deaths in pet/captive parrots. Obviously the Fatty Liver Disease was being caused by all seed-mix diets (this was in the early-to-mid 00's, so pellets were not a big thing at all then, or just becoming a big thing)...But the Iron Toxicity was something that I didn't realize killed so many pet parrots...And I can tell you that every single Veterinarian who worked in the lab, and there were many, including my boss who was the director of the entire lab and a man named Doug who was a retired Avian Specialist who took that job after he retired, all preached the importance of not feeding birds any food that was high in not only Iron, but in Vitamin C...And after seeing the literally hundreds of pet parrots who I diagnosed as dying from Iron Toxicity of the Liver, that's when I realized just how big a deal feeding Citrus Fruit and Citrus Fruit Juice to your parrots is...And back then there wasn't a lot of literature about anything really, just textbooks (the internet was still in it's infancy and just blowing-up, so few sites existed, and you could only access medical journals through private networks at that point)...Now this exact information regarding Citrus Fruit/Vitamin C being deadly to birds is everywhere, but still no one seems to know about it or at least doesn't take it seriously, but I saw the effects first-hand, and I can honestly tell you that there is no reason to feed your birds Citrus Fruit or Fruit Juice on a regular basis, because the risk is there, and it's huge.
Again, I too feed my Green Cheek a drink of Orange Juice now and then because it's his absolute favorite thing to eat or drink...But I don't actually feed my birds ANY actual Citrus Fruit, no Oranges, Grapefruit, Lemons, Limes, etc....and I stay away from Tomatoes as well...There are plenty of safe, healthy fruits to feed your birds that make it unnecessary to take the risk of feeding them oranges or grapefruit (or any other Citrus Fruit)...I generally agree with the "anything in moderation" when it comes to my birds too...In fact I typically give my birds a bite of whatever I'm eating, whether it be a bit of pizza crust, pasta, a bite of cheese, ice cream, a potato chip, whatever it is...It's not all the time, it's "in moderation"...But I don't feed them ANY Citrus Fruit...I don't even buy Oranges or Grapefruit. They get apples, seedless grapes, banana, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, watermelon occasionally, mango, guava, kiwi, starfruit, passionfruit, etc....But not oranges or grapefruit...Not after seeing first-hand how many pet parrots die of Iron Toxicity...It's one of those things where we should go "Why take the risk?", just like with burning incense/candles, using harsh cleaners, etc. It's actually a greater risk than burning candles and such based on what I saw, so it's just not worth it...A drink of Orange Juice once a week? Okay...but that's the extent of it...
I'd rather try to spread the word and back it up by saying "Just Google it for yourself", I can do that now because it's all over the internet, and not in "opinionated" articles, blogs, etc. I'm talking all over the internet in Veterinary Journals, Textbooks (Such as the Merck Veterinary Manual, and it doesn't get anymore official and trustworthy than that), etc. At least it's easily found nowadays...It's obviously every pet bird owner's own, personal choice whether or not to feed their birds Citrus Fruit more than once a week or so, but at least no one can say that I didn't do my best to educate and inform about the dangers of Iron Storage Disease caused by intake of Citrus Fruit/high Vitamin C foods...
I'm fine with people thinking of me as being "a dick" or "a pain in the ass" if what I'm saying sticks in the back of their heads when they're grocery shopping for their birds, or prompts them to do their own Google search to find out on their own. I'm perfectly good with that if it saves them from losing their birds suddenly and way too soon from something that is totally preventable.
