Fertilized Parrot Eggs for Sale with Incubators

An Unhatched Variation of the Cameroon Pet Scam

© Michael McGrath

Sep 17, 2008

The offer appears online in pet forums and classified ads: “fertilized parrot eggs for sale."

It seems like the deal of a lifetime to anyone who ever dreamed of owning one of the larger parrots—while a fully grown hyacinth or black palm cockatoo can cost more than $10,000, you can buy fertile parrot eggs for a fraction of the cost. The offer is even more appealing if you know that fertile chicken eggs are regularly shipped across the country.

Fertile Parrot Eggs and Reality

Unfortunately, offers of fertile parrot eggs are almost always clever online scams. Think of them as unhatched versions of the notorious Cameroon pet scam. Like the Cameroon pet scam parrot egg scams play on both our dreams as pet owners and our urge to make a deal. Here’s a list of parrot species offered through one version of the fertilized parrot eggs scam, along with the price a legitimate breeder can ask for each type of parrot:

• African Grey Parrot: $30 an egg (breeder price $900 to $1,100)
• Amazons: $30 ($800 to $1,300 depending on species)
• Black palm cockatoo: $40 ($10,000 to $22,000)
• Blue and gold macaw: $30 ($900 to $1,000)
• Citron cockatoo: $30 ($1,400)
• Gang gang cockatoo: $25 ($12,000 to $15,000)
• Goffin cockatoo: $30 ($800 to $900)
• Green wing macaw: $30 ($1,200)
• Harlequin macaw: $25 ($1,400 to $1,600)
• Hyacinth macaw: $35 ($9,000 to $11,000)
• Major Mitchell cockatoo: $28 ($2,500 to $4,000)
• Rose breasted cockatoo: $30 ($1,500 to $1,600)
• Scarlet macaw: $30 ($1,200)
• Eclectus: $30 ($900 to $1,000)
• Umbrella Cockatoo: $30 ($1,100).

Let’s see—a breeder can sell fertile parrot eggs for $25 to $35, or can hatch the eggs and sell the weaned birds for anywhere from $800 to $22,000 a bird. Somehow selling fertile parrot eggs just doesn’t seem like a very good business move . . . .

Parrots and Chicken Eggs

One reason the fertile parrot egg scam works is that the idea seems feasible. After all, fertile chicken eggs and other poultry are sold online and transported across the country on a regular basis. This reasoning is also used to persuade people into buying unweaned parrots. In both cases there is a small, but important fact: parrots aren’t chickens.

Chicken eggs are, by and large, much tougher and resilient than parrot eggs, and capable of surviving conditions that would kill a fertile parrot eggs. The cons may offer to provide an incubator for transport. Parrot egg incubators are extremely expensive pieces of equipment—it’s extremely unlikely anyone would give—or even loan—one for transportation.

The crooks are often in Cameroon or other African countries where online pet scams are a cottage industry. They may claim that there’s no problem importing fertile parrot eggs into the U.S.A. Not true. Under the CITES agreement importing exotic animals, including parrots, is a long and complicated process.

The fertile parrot egg scam may take one or two twists. The crooks may either claim they guarantee hatchings or may point out there’s no guarantee. They may send chicken eggs (fertile or not) instead of parrot eggs. Payment is almost always requested through money orders, which are impossible to trace when cashed. And, as with the Cameroon pet scam, there’ll be unmentioned “processing fees” and shipping complications that need to be resolved (read: send money!) before the eggs can be shipped.

“Fertilized parrot eggs for sale?” Certainly smells like fertilizer—or rotten eggs.

Fertilized parrot eggs for sale? It's a scam.

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