A small amount of egg might not do your African grey much harm, but there’s really no good reason to include eggs as a regular part of their diet. African greys can get all the nutrition they need out of seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables, and eggs could easily become a problem if overfed even slightly.
So, the simple answer is that they can eat eggs, but that they probably shouldn’t.
Depending on which part of the egg and how it’s prepared, there may be some benefit to giving your African grey eggs.
However, you could get all the same benefits from other foods that would not pose the same risks.
It’s best to avoid giving your African grey eggs.
Let’s find out more.
Are eggs good for African greys?
In order to illustrate that there’s no particular reason to feed eggs to African greys, let’s look at the ways in which feeding them eggs might be beneficial.
They are often praised as a fantastic source of protein for African greys, helping them build and maintain healthy bones, joints and muscles.
Indeed, eggs are a favorite of human bodybuilders!
But your African grey is only a small thing, and the protein concentrations in eggs are really unnecessarily high, and we tend to have a lot of misconceptions about the sources of protein in human and animal diets.
Protein is abundant in plant foods of all kinds; your African grey will get most of the protein it needs from its varied diet of nuts and seeds.
Formulated pellets, too, will usually be packed with protein for your African grey, too.
We can easily forget that protein is present in plant matter because we tend to associate it purely with meat and animal products.
Eggs may be a source of protein for your African grey, but so are plenty of other things that will not pose the same health risks as eggs.
Eggs are also often praised as a great source of vitamin D, for parrots as well as humans.
The truth is, though, that your parrot’s primary source of vitamin D should not even be in their diet at all: they should be getting it from direct sunlight.
Sunlight is where most vitamin D will come from, so the best way to get your parrot vitamin D is to make sure they spend their time in a very well-lit room and their vitamin D will really take care of itself.
So, again, there’s really no reason to give them eggs; they should be getting enough natural light for their vitamin D.
Overall, then, eggs are incredibly nutritionally rich and so you’ll often hear suggestions that they are really good for your parrot for this reason.
The truth is, though, that it is precisely because of their nutritional density that you need to be careful.
Only a tiny amount will be more than enough to satisfy the nutritional needs of even a large parrot like an African grey.
If they get it out of the equivalent quantity of fruits, nuts, and seeds, then they will be able to enjoy the treat for longer.
So, again, while there are some superficial benefits to eating eggs for an African grey, overall there’s really no particular reason to give them eggs.
Let’s look at the potential health risks involved.
Are eggs bad for African greys?
In the right quantities, eggs can pose many potential problems for your parrot’s health.
Let’s start with the worst-case scenario, but one which is not at all a remote possibility if you feed them eggs often.
Most veterinarians will agree that giving your parrot eggs frequently will ultimately lead to clogged arteries, given that eggs are so high in cholesterol.
Clogged arteries can cause strokes and even death in the worst cases.
While you would have to feed your African grey quite a lot of eggs, it’s not as much as you might think.
Eggs, then, pose serious health risks, which the nutritional equivalent in fruits or seeds or nuts would not.
With this said, there’s nothing to worry about if your African grey happens to get into an egg when you aren’t looking or something along those lines.
A very occasional egg won’t be a problem, but equally, it won’t be of much particular benefit, either.
Anything that you could get out of an egg you could get in a healthier package from something else.
Of course, in the wild, even African greys may sometimes eat eggs by stealing them from the nests of other birds.
This is generally, though, either an act of desperation or it is more about eliminating competition for one’s own offspring than it is about nutrition.
So, again, eggs are indeed bad for your African grey in many ways and should be avoided.
Can African greys eat raw eggs?
Again, they can, and it’s not going to be a problem if they get one very, very occasionally.
Raw eggs pose no specific issues for your African grey and indeed they would be able to metabolize the raw egg.
But, again, this would not come without its problems, and as we’ll see shortly African greys absolutely should not eat egg yolks.
So, they could eat the whites alone of a raw egg, but this isn’t a particularly exciting treat and you’ll have to go to the effort of separating the yolk.
Can African greys eat egg whites?
If there were a safe part of the egg to eat, it would be the whites.
Again, though, while the whites may be safer than the yolk, they are still far from actually safe.
They come with all the potential health risks we’ve looked at so far, and without any benefit that you couldn’t get more easily elsewhere.
Can African greys eat egg yolks?
Yolks are definitely not safe for your African grey.
Yolks contain the highest concentration of cholesterol in the egg, and thus this is about the worst part of the egg you could give them.
If the main issue with giving your parrot eggs is the potential for clogged arteries, then it is going to be the yolks that cause that.
Avoid giving your parrot egg yolks, whether cooked or raw, at all costs.
Can African greys eat egg shells?
Egg shells will not be particularly interesting to your African grey if they have any other food to entertain their attention.
Given that they are taken to cracking eggs with their beaks on rare occasions in the wild, a little bit of eggshell wouldn’t be a problem for them.
Again, though, the issue is that there’s no specific benefit or reason to give them eggshells.
Can African greys eat boiled eggs?
Boiled eggs are no more dangerous than raw eggs, though again that does not mean they are not a problem.
Again you have the issue of the yolk, and so you would have to remove the yolk after you had boiled it—a tedious and pointless process given that there’s no real specific benefit to giving your African grey eggs!
If you were ever going to feed them egg, then raw egg whites is the only way to do it.
Can African greys eat fried eggs?
Fried eggs are absolutely off-limits for your African grey.
Again, they come with all the concerns we’ve already looked at, plus the likelihood that they’ve been fried in oil that is going to make them even more problematic for your African grey.
Can African greys eat scrambled eggs?
The trend you’re seeing here is that any cooked version of egg is really not a good idea for your African grey—and the same goes for scrambled eggs.
Again you have the problem that the yolk is mixed in and you’ve got no way of separating it.
Furthermore, again, you’ve got to think about how it was cooked—usually, milk or butter are used for scrambling eggs, and this again makes a terrible thing for your African grey to eat.
So, again, while there may be one or two benefits to giving your African grey eggs, it’s nothing that they couldn’t get elsewhere from a less problematic source.
Egg yolks are completely off the cards so anytime you give them an egg you would have to separate the yolk, and you’d never want to give them eggs more than once a week.
In all, then, it’s just better to find something of a similar nutritional profile in the fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables that they would ordinarily eat.