Rancid fat - bad for birds??

[Mousie]

I have just bought a bag of fat balls from the local garden centre, and they do not smell good, they smell rancid - I put some out but I am worried about them being bad for the birds - am I being fussy, or should I bin them? (All £11 worth! Grrrr!)

[Pigeon feather]

I would take them back and demand a refund! better to be safe than sorry and not feed them to the birds you are not being fussy at all, they should not be selling them.

[LRM]

It's annoying when you buy expensive stuff and its not up to the quality you expect. I've thrown away fat balls which I've thought smelt a bit off. At the moment I've got a whole pack - unopened which I've had for months because they seemed to have stopped eating them, and I don't know what to do with them. I bought fresh ones but they seem to hard for them to eat.

I had some sunflower hearts and at the bottom of the sack they had mite and smelt a bit. I threw them out to the rooks as mite are like insects (or sort of), but they nor any other bird wouldn't eat them, oviously didn't like the smell. Birds have a very good sense of smell and won't eat it if they don't like the smell.

But I agree it is worrying that you might poison them, especially now when they are hungry and may not be so fussy.

The RSPB says you mustn't give them mouldy stuff but I haven't seen anything about fat balls, except not to leave them in garden more than 3 weeks.

[Pigeon feather]

As far as I am aware most birds have a very poor sense of smell! so I don't think this is likely to be the cause, either they can tell it's not good by the way it looks or they have tried a bit and realised