Probably every older book you read on birds details the necessity of feeding grit to your avian companion. There has been much controversy in recent years over the use of this material, but in 1983, a distinguished panel of avian vets at the annual meeting of the Association of Avian Veterinarians made the statement that grit is not felt to be necessary for digestions of seed in the caged bird; in fact, over supplementation may lead to serious health problems such as impaction of the crop, gizzard, or stomach.

What is grit? It is generally made of a rock-like substance in varying sizes. It may be quartz or other similar stones. Grit may include oyster shell to provide calcium and pieces of charcoal thought to help remove "toxins" from the digestive tract.

The reasoning behind the thought that grit was necessary is that when wild bird's digestive tracts were examined after death, there were pieces of hard rock-like material present in their gizzards. Birds in the wild, as they pick up their food off the ground, could easily pick up foreign materials such as stones along with their food. These small amounts of gravel may have provided some trace minerals that were helpful to the bird, and were also present in such small amounts that the bird could easily pass them. The problem in captivity is that we provide large cups full of grit (which is not the way it exists in the wild) and allow the bird to eat freely of this material. In some diseased states, a bird will indeed develop a "depraved appetite" and consume large quantities of grit, leading to impaction of the stomach and/or crop, and eventual death.

It has been also thought that grit helps to "grind up the seed" in the gizzard. If we examine the path of the digestive tract, we see that the food is softened first in the secretions of the crop, then moves to the stomach, (which, like our stomachs contain digestive acids), and FINALLY to the gizzard. The gizzard is a grinding organ, but by the time the food reaches this part of the digestive tract, it is soft enough that the action of the very muscular gizzard is enough to mash the already softened food.

There has been much controversy over the oyster shell part of the grit mix. It is generally accepted that if oyster shells are to be used as a source of calcium, they should be white and not a dark grey color. There are other ways of supplementing calcium such as the use of cuttlebone, mineral blocks, crushed egg shells and calcium powdered supplement.

Additionally, the use of charcoal in the grit mix has been shown to be of no value and may cause digestive upset in some birds.

Our recommendation is that you do not feed grit mixtures to your pet as the health risks are too great. If you do not feel totally convinced and still think its use is necessary, use only 2-3 grains per day sprinkled over the food. Realize that many of the bird books you may have been reading have not been updated in many years and these recommendations regarding grit are very recent.