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Answered by E.B. Cravens:

This is a controversial question to answer. for so man years, certain veterinarians and pet bird keepers have continued to preach that captive parrots can overdose on grit and become crop-impacted as a result.....truth is, field studies have shown that psittacines of all kinds do go to the ground and ingest grit for many reasons--they even feed it to the chicks in the nest. My breeder parrots, all of which have access to the ground, will begin to ingest soil and sand and crunchy substrate one to two weeks before the laying stage and continue to eat grit well through the first weeks of chick feeding. I first observed this in my older experienced and imported pairs of parrots and so I began to take notice!

The key for the pet owner is what species you are keeping---certain parrots like cockatiels, lovebirds, princess and other ground foraging species (including cockatoos) will take more grit that eclectus, capes, lorikeets and the like. Soft food eaters need less grit than do seed eaters such as budgerigars. Sometimes the soft food lovers will choose less course grit to satisfy their needs---things like clay and very fine soil. These are perhaps less gritty and do not precipitate the same digestive activity--instead acting as soil type filler and mineral supplement for the birds. Study your species...it will tell you much about a need for ground minerals...

Finally, it must be emphasized that the addition of grit to the domestic parrot diet can be done very safely if one gives small salt and pepper amounts of clean bird grit to the diet once every two or three weeks. For example, I add two tablespoons of oyster shell/sand/mineral grit to my flocks wet foods once every two to four weeks (more often during breeding season). This amount is for 24 full sized parrots, grey to macaw size. With aloha, EB