Incense Smoke and Parakeet Safety

User Question
You mentioned that with a parakeet you shouldn't smoke. This isn't a problem for me, since everyone in my family is a non-smoker, but is it okay to burn incense? I don't know if all smoke is harmful.

Lisa's Answer
I love incense and scented candles too, but all of those "smelly" things (including the kind you plug in and the kind you spray) are in essence putting chemicals into the air in a thick enough layer that they can be detected. Humans have really awful nose sense, compared to most creatures. Meaning if there is so much "smelly stuff" in the air that your feeble nose can detect it, there are huge concentrations that your parakeet is now breathing into their lungs.

Yes, there are cases where parakeets have reacted to this dose of chemicals coating their lungs, and gotten sick or died.

So I might not mind having say a scented orange candle in the kitchen while the parakeets are off in the office room. But I really wouldn't suggest you do anything fragrance oriented IN the room with the parakeets. Incense is probably the worst thing you could do. At least with a scented candle it's just a light fragrance from the oil ... but with incense it's actually the whole incense stick that is getting ashed and going up into the room. I don't know if you've ever dusted after burning incense but it creates a layer of grit over everything. That grit is going right into your parakeet's lungs ...

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