Eggs As Food: Is That Cannibalism for Parrots?

It sounds a little odd to feed eggs to parrots. After all, parrots are birds and they lay eggs to procreate. But it really isn’t at all unusual for birds in the wild to eat other species’ eggs…

Eggs are a powerful food that feeds the brains of these sharp creatures. It takes a certain amount of intelligence to survive in the wild, so a meal from an egg is a good choice. Egg yolks contain choline which is a serious brain food because it makes rapid thinking far easier by speeding up the relay signals in the brain. The choline found in eggs also aid liver function and transferring and distributing nutrients throughout the body where it is needed.

The eggshell is an excellent source of calcium which is sparse in the wild. This calcium is valuable to a bird because a female is going to need it if she lay eggs of her own. The calcium she consumes helps form a stronger shell for those eggs she wants to lay. She has to seek it out any way she can and eggs are a pretty easy way to get it. That egg isn’t her egg so she really doesn’t care about it. All that wild bird cares about is feeding herself and laying healthy eggs with strong shells.

While I don’t include the egg shell in my scrambled or poached eggs, I do feed my flock egg shells. For Christmas my husband got me a ‘real’ mortar and pestle (since I was using a rolling pin, which wasn’t working as well) – we keep several shells, clean them, bake them and then I crush them up and sprinkle them on the flock’s veggies. Takes a little time, but it’s easy, free and good for your birds!