Picky picky birds !

[Kleftiwallah]

Good evening everyone,

getting a little miffed buying bags of bird food (seeds) from the local pet shop just to see most of it go untasted then having to clear it away and discard it. Is there anywhere recommended where I can find a list of the seeds that birds will eat rather than pay for seeds they don't?

I don't know if there is a source of various/mixed seeds and if you do know of one, are you allowed to tell me? ? ? Cheers, Tony.

[Jenny W]

Birds will be picky when offered a choice. It's all got to do with a number of factors including-

Bill size - bigger birds will be able to handle bigger seeds
Method of de-husking - species which de-husk with the seed parallel to the bill axis can't de-husk as big seeds as those which de-husk transversely to bill axis (something to do with how the seeds split!)
Time taken to de-husk
Nutritional value versus time taken to de-husk
etc, etc. Plus many other factors I'm sure!

Vine House Farm sell individual seeds and recommend each type for the species that prefer them. Google 'Vine House Farm' and you will find them.

[Tringa]

I've found that nearly any cheap bird food is not really that cheap as a fair bit goes to waste.

However even with good quality easily taken food (eg sunflower hearts) then there can still be quite a lot of waste, it depends on the birds. The tit family tend to take one seed at a time fly, off with it then hold it down to eat it. The finches on the other hand are extremely messy eaters and lots goes on the ground.

[shenk1]

We buy mainly sunflower hearts from our local pet/farm food supplier by the sack. 25kg for £25 is the cheapest we can find.We get less waste from this than any combination we can find.Try putting trays on the bottom of your feeders and a lot of the dropped stuff goes in there. They will still throw some about though and I am sure the just like to give you something to do!

[loripo]

There is no way of knowing how old the cheaper stuff is. My friend buys whole unroasted peanuts and from the pet shop they can be very grotty so he gets them from some where like S/bury sold for humans!

[AndrewB]

I began by using a 2 port tubular feeder for seed, but the birds seemed a bit reluctant to use it. Possibly due to the fixed perches being a bit on the short side.

After browsing online I managed to find an excellent gazebo feeder for around £5. The ports are bigger and the birds find it much easier to perch.

There is a lot of spillage but this is soon mopped up by the collared doves who wait expectantly underneath.

[teknomage]

I buy 25Kg sacks of sunflower hearts & peanuts from our local farm supplier plus some bags of thistle seed (for the siskins & goldfinches). I used to buy "Wild bird food" from the pet shop, but as you have already discovered the birds waste most of it, so it works out quite expensive in the long run. I don't get any waste from the peanuts and sunflower hearts - and most of my birds love them. Any dropped bits always get hoovered up by the local chaffinches and sparrows!

The thistle seeds are rather messy - the siskins and goldfinches neatly de-husk them and eat the kernals, then drop the empty husks on the ground under the feeder. Thistle seeds seem to be mostly husk - so we do get a feeder's worth of husk in a heap under the feeder every week!

The other thing I've found the birds here all love & never waste are berry-flavoured suet treats (which look like bits of pink suet.) Oddly they don't take to the yellow "insect flavour" ones at all.

tekno.mage