Fox Valley contaminated with metal, particles

[Trooper]

My two female Esatern Grays Scratchy and Runty are having their second babies of their life outside in the wild (of my backyard), coinciding quite well with the average birth dates for spring per Kropowski et.al where births average is on February 27 (out of 86 females sampled in a university study in Arizona), so I got into action preparing lots of nuts, veggies, avocado, corn and Fox Valley infant formula to keep them going strong and helping with milk production.

So serendipitously I prepared today a mix of FV in a mousse ceramic bowl and not wanting to have it spilled over I attached a very strong magnet underneath with a piece of 3M VHB tape (Very High Bond) and magnetically locket it in place to the top of our ceramic tiled BBQ which has a heavy steel plate. This is where they come twice a day to get their nuts and freshies. Everything went well, Scratchy came an lapped the milk leaving none for her sister Runty who also has given birth 1 or 2 days appart. So I rushed to my lab sink to wash the bowl and make a new batch for Runty, and upon rinsing it with tap water, I noticed a certain amount of greyish particles attached on the bowl's bottom, held in place by the magnets force lines. I scraped them out and under microscopic examination, it turned out to be steel or iron particles, very fine of about 50 to 150 microns in size.

The FV powder I have is still in the original bag I got it in, and was purchased about October 2012. Kept it in the freezer from when I released the girls out on Thanksgiving 2012.


Scratchy seems to be doing O.K. and eating well this afternoon, so I am only mentioning this as a link to the earlier thread about FV giving diahrrea to pinkies. I don't know if metalic particles could do that to the tender tiny GI system of a pinky, but I mention it just in case. I sifted the dry FV formula with a magnet wrapped in a plastic baggie and found more metal particles in it. Unfortunately the FV bag I have does not have a batch or date stamp as others did use to come with, so I cannot offer that info, only that it was bought about Sept-Oct., 2012.

Hope that if you have FV in stock, you can do the magnet test and see if it too has the same response as I had.

Regards,

Trooper's dad

[CritterMom]

Metals. Great. I am so disgusted by this company. They HAD a good product and they have just destroyed that and the goodwill of the people who not only bought it but recommended it with every breath they took. I genuinely do NOT think we should be recommending this stuff to anyone for anything (probably work pretty good as sheetrock mud)...

[Mountain Mama]

Oh no! This is TERRIBLE!

(The picture of you with that precious squirrel is great, though!)

[Fireweed]

Thanks, Trooper. I make masks. I'll probably use my left-over FV for plaster.

That pic of you and your squee is so adorable. If we still had a photo contest, I'd vote for that one! It's a winner!

[Trooper]

Having raised my Trooper on FV after having so much trouble with the earlier Esbilac formula and later on giving FV to Stratchy, Runty and Blacky (the Three Stoogettes), I feel sorry too to see the contamination. I am not connecting it to the diahrrea issues of these past few months, but just to show that maybe quality control has suffered.

Yes, I have a cousin that takes great pics of my girls and trooper, I can make a great album of them. You can see a sample on this Mixbook.com gift I got for my bday 2013 on Trooper's story and about my Three Stoogettes.
http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/i...?vk=759PD8gn7A

Regards,

Trooper's dad

[SammysMom]

WOW!!! This is very interesting information! Thank-you so much for sharing this!!!
Beautiful pics!!!

[island rehabber]

IT wasn't so much diarrhea in pinkies on FV, it was the opposite: extreme constipation. Basically the stuff does not move thru their tiny bodies at ALL and they die. Metals in their digestive tracts would certainly cause that....no?

I'm with Crit, that I am so disappointed and disgusted with FV. Nick is a sweet man but obviously he has no idea what his son and nephew are doing to the company, and he doesn't have the strength/motivation any more to find out. (He is a different man from who he was before his wife passed away, I'm afraid.) Loyalty to him can't cloud our judgment and put baby squirrels in jeopardy. This metal stuff is very very VERY disturbing!

[Chickenlegs]

As far as I know I haven't had any FV problems--maybe because I use goats milk for the littles. I do use my left overs for making snacks and adding to possum food.

Those are amazing photos!

[Shewhosweptforest]

I just "won" a three pound tub of FV in our raffle (plus I have an almost full 1 lb. bag from 9/13) What should I do? My husband does have industrial strength magnets...if I do the Baggie/magnet run through should it be ok to use? I wouldn't use it on pinkies (praying I don't get any ) I would follow Kastillo's protocol with Xander. This really disturbs me because I used FV with my possies, who were all strangely compromised.

[jfischer]

I raised my squirrel on Just Born for Kittens. Before I ever knew there was a TSB or Fox Valley. She is 6 years old now. But there is not more Just Born any where. They must have taken it off the Market. I am not recommending Just Born, but just sharing.

[island rehabber]

sweeper and everyone: let's not panic unnecessarily. With one exception I know of, it has been the pinkies who have extreme difficulty lately with Fox Valley formula. I raised all of mine last year on it (32/40, 20/50 and Ultra Boost) and with the exception of one pinky, all did fine.

[I Love Lucy]

Since Esbilac was replaced with Fox Valley being the recommended formula I have never been satisfied with Fox Valley for pinkies. I have been successfully using a formula combination of 50% Fox Valley 32/40 and 50% Zoologic Milk Matrix 33/40 mixed 1 part powder to 2 1/2 water. I use it for babies aged birth to weaning with no problems at all. Last year I rehabbed over 60 squirrels with no formula issues. It is important to mix any powder thoroughly if it has been sitting for awhile because the heavy particles will settle.

I am alarmed and curious so I am going to check my formulas for metal particles tomorrow.

[psychobird]

Okay I don't know this for sure but is it possible it's minerals that are suppose to be in there?
Has anyone contacted FV?

[Nancy in New York]

sweeper and everyone: let's not panic unnecessarily. With one exception I know of, it has been the pinkies who have extreme difficulty lately with Fox Valley formula. I raised all of mine last year on it (32/40, 20/50 and Ultra Boost) and with the exception of one pinky, all did fine.

We can't forget about fireweed and little Solo, and she's what, around two years old at least?
And your 6 little ones all got diarrhea, now whether that was cocchidia or FV who knows. BUT they
started it here, and I still had the 3 pinkie reds, and they were on GM at the time, and they never got cocchidia.
I had terrible problems with the FV regardless of what I tried, and after losing my little red, Robbie, I NEVER fed
them only FV, because problems would start up again, even when they got older. . I ended up feeding them
Esbilac and FV. UGH, and they never looked like the FV babies I've had before.

Unfortunately what we learned from us all discussing this, was that it wasn't only pinkies that were having problems,
it seemed like it was right across the board.

For anyone interested, here is a link to the original thread about the concern with Fox Valley.

http://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/s...ght=fox+valley

[California Squirrel Lover]

Hi Trooper's Dad! Your pics are priceless, I always love them.

[Trooper]

Okay I don't know this for sure but is it possible it's minerals that are suppose to be in there?
Has anyone contacted FV?

Psychobird: all minerals in FV or Esbilac, and for that matter on every and any supplement taken by mammals or cold blooded animals are in the "salt" form or other soluble form, which is not the metal form. As we all know very well all true metals do not dissolve in water very easily. So, whenever we take a pill for iron supplementation for example; it is a salt form and not really the iron your hammer is made off. Only metals made of iron or iron based, like regular steel (which is iron 94%, carbon 2-4%, and balance other stabilizing metals like zinc) but not the common stainless steels used in cuttlery and food handling equipment, are attracted to a magnet.

In fact for the test I did, one does not need a strong magnet, even those magnets from fridge decorations will work with the fine powder I found on my FV.

To all fairness to FV manufacturers, the iron-based filings could have been introduced into the prime matter they use for the formula, through their vendors. This is a constant problem to overcome by companies that process food. It is a quality control strategy that needs to be looked upon, also known as "IQC" or incoming quality control, where the prime matter merchandise is inspected against a company standard specification when it arrives at their docks and it is matched for color, odor, texture, grain of milling, chemical composition (by reactants) and foreign matter contamination (by sifting, magnets, decantation in liquids, etc.).

If FV is a "mom-and-pop" operation, they may have their best interest at heart to do right for our beloved sciuridae species, but perhaps they need to look at some of the quality management factors to make sure things like this do not happen.

Thanks,

Trooper's dad

[squirrelsrule&bunniestoo]

Has anyone sent a sample of Fox Valley in to be analyzed? We were just learning the effects of too much copper on the liver in digestive yesterday.

I'd be interested in an actual analysis of the product. This is not good news to hear right before baby season starts. I have my stuff from last year which I didn't have an issue with, but after that runs out....

I am still trying to find something for cottontails. I feel the homemade formula (the powder one with whey protein, goat milk, powdered egg yolk, and vitamins) doesn't have enough fat for bunnies and a fat source that'd be good to add to a powdered formula is hard to find. I'll probably end up getting lard again and mixing that in, but that is really hard to do and I'm not sure how much to add.

[BigNibbler]

Trooper I love the photos and your analytic mind.
Having noticed these bluish particles in FV for a while, and having a very strong magnet that I use for holding various containers to a variety of iron surfaces I could immediately relate to your discovery.

But there are a whole lot of references online to metal particles in food. Not sure how much are absorbed.
If we drink water that is flowing along an iron surface, I believe we will benefit somewhat from those iron molecules that become suspended in the water. Perhaps we would not metabolize them the same way as if they were iron salts but ...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-science-home/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V265pGgsBnM&noredirect=1

http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/.../PhysRev.48.78

[Trooper]

Trooper I love the photos and your analytic mind.
Having noticed these bluish particles in FV for a while, and having a very strong magnet that I use for holding various containers to a variety of iron surfaces I could immediately relate to your discovery.

But there are a whole lot of references online to metal particles in food. Not sure how much are absorbed.
If we drink water that is flowing along an iron surface, I believe we will benefit somewhat from those iron molecules that become suspended in the water. Perhaps we would not metabolize them the same way as if they were iron salts but ...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-science-home/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V265pGgsBnM&noredirect=1

http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/.../PhysRev.48.78

BigNibbler: Thank you for liking my pics. we love them too!

About your links and magnetic iron on cereal, please be careful with the source of the information, even if it comes from a reputable scientific magazine. The iron that is soluble for human or mammalian comsumption is a salt of iron and not the metal, and indeed iron salts are magnetic to some extend. Some iron compounds are magnetic, some are not. For example, magnetite is magnetic, hematite is not.

Pure "rust" that forms on a piece of iron when wet or over the years is hydrated iron(III) oxide, and this is not magnetic. The fundamental cause of magnetism is the presence of electron spin, whether in an element or in a compound. Some iron compounds have iron ions with electron spin, depending upon the electron configuration of the iron in the particular compound. Even iron alloys (iron compounds with other metals) are sometimes magnetic and sometimes not. It is hard to give a simple set of rules to predict what the magnetic properties will be.

In my initial post, I did not want to be overly scientific, like on this one, because I was afraid it would fly over most readers heads. The magentic particles I found in my 2012 batch of FV where big enough to be seen under 10x microscope magnification and shun like actaul metal particles and not their magnetic salts. Also another test I performed is a conductivity test, and the result indicated metal form not salt, which is more of an insulator than a aconductor of electricity.

Lastly, I'd like to re-emphasize that real, actual metal particles is a problem for the food industry, addressed by industrial-grade equipment made by companies all over the world which utilize magnets, X-rays, metal detector and infra red smplers or scanners to actually find the metal in pre-processing and post-processing of foodstuff. after all it is not that FV has metal and other food products don't, the point is it should not be there at all.

Let me put it this way: lead metal is not toxic to humans or other invertrebrates if you touch it or even chew it (I used to do it when my dad went hunting and my sibblins competed for the next piece if we could find a lead shot in the piece of game we were eating). But when you mix lead metal or other metals (like cadmium) with an acid (like vinegar from a salad dressing or the hydrochloric acid in our stomachs), the lead reacts and a new compound is formed (lead oxide a.k.a. 'sugar of lead', which is actually sweet like sugar) or in the case of cadmium, oxides that can reach the hexavalent cadmium oxide that are carcinogenic to mammals. these two last oxides (lead or cadmium) are extremely toxic to us and our pets, but only in the soluble "salt" form.

O.K. we know you might have eaten a lead shot just like I did when younger, or swalowed a copper nickel, however these do not stay in our gut too long to form the salt compunds and are excreted along with the salts on your next bowel movement. On the other hand, microscopic size metals like lead, copper, iron, cadmium and other could lodge themselves in the folds and linings of the stomach, duodenum, small and large intestines and react with the food and gastric acids to form long-term production of these heavy-metals salts. After that all bets are off.

In conclusion: mammals were not designed by evolution (or your favorite divinity of choice) to consume heavy or light metals in any metalic form (although as we have ben discussing some of their salts are indeed beneficial to us).

I hope not to have put anyone to slep! (attached pics of Scratchy in her nest eating from the 'dumbwaiter' I made to lift food to her suite. Babies doing fine!)

Regards,

Trooper's dad.

[BigNibbler]

Do you have dumbwaiter design photos or details on here. That is cool. I had thought of doing something like that on a very simple scale like a pulley secured to a limb. But saved the idea in my oversize box of crazy ideas. Real Cool!

Re: Metals, I am not quick to believe anything I read online, uh.. that is why I am questioning this here as well.
So you are saying that the conductivity test you did would not have the same results with the cereal in the link I referenced?
And that the presence of magnetic particles in the cereal is OK, but the fox valley is a problem?
Or are you saying both are a problem.

I had always assumed that the metal was just sales hype and that it would not metabolize effectively. On the other hand, I accepted that metallic compounds in water for example are common.

Is this all wrong, part wrong... ?
I just think to drop this right now, would be most confusing to everyone..
The bottom line is ?