Birds...what do you feed them?

[MaryIsA]

Got a garden that’s sufficiently cat free that I feel able to put out bird feed. What do you put out, on what, and how much does it cost you!

I put out suet pellets and dried mealworms which I buy from pets at home or from The RSPB online, double whammy of looking after the birds and supporting a charity at the same time. They also love sunflower seeds.

Fat/suet balls in cages mainly as most birds love them.
Nuts in the winter but not in breeding season because I've heard baby birds can choke on them.
Mealworms for the robins and scraps on the bird table.
Also a seed mix in a hanger. I've tried sunflower hearts but the birds round here don't seem to like them.

I spend far too much money on feeding them
(Although you can get cheaper packets in places like B&M and pound stretcher).

We get ours from an Irish company (we're in Ireland) that grows as much of the seed themselves as will grow here. It's good quality and the birds eat all of it; with other foods they'd pick out the good bits and leave the rest.

We give them seed mixes and fat balls, some in hanging feeders and some on the ground (though that all gets eaten too). Sometimes mealworms, though they only come in quite small bags and our lot would get through them in a day.

We get loads of corvids, collared doves, robins, blue tits, great tits, yellowhammers, bullfinches, goldfinches, blackbirds and a load of little brown ones that we haven't identified yet. They seem pretty happy with the setup.

Sunflower hearts (saves finding the shells all over the place), suet pellets, fat balls. peanuts in a mesh feeder, niger seeds.

Oh and make sure you have water for them, OP. They obviously need to drink and they love a little bath too

Whenever I see "fat balls" mentioned I always think of the MN poster who made her own and whose husband ate one thinking they were energy snacks 😜 He complained that it was too greasy 😂

Anyway, I echo what PPs have said about mixes or hulled seeds. I used to buy from Ark Wildlife as they deliver it in big sacks. What you choose really depends on what birds you want to feed.

My garden birds love the Peckish brand fat balls from Amazon. Bizarrely they won’t touch the RSPB fat balls at all. I’ve even done an experiment of putting out half and half and the RSPB ones get left!

Also mixed seeds, and peanuts for the blue tits.

Some fat balls are so hard they are like bricks in the winter. I stick them in the microwave for a few second just to soften them up otherwise they can't eat them.

I remember the fat ball thread with the husband eating them 🤣

Fat balls and suet pellets in feeders here too. Plus for the ground feeders I scatter more fat pellets, peanut, mealworms and a handful of sultanas.

Get the good quality food though - cheap fat balls are rank.

Cost is dependant on what I buy.

Today in the garden I've seen Blue Tits, Robins, Blackbirds, Jenny Wrens, Starlings, Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Pigeons, and my latest visitor during the past few weeks - a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

It's well worth it.

Some fat balls are so hard they are like bricks in the winter. I stick them in the microwave for a few second just to soften them up otherwise they can't eat them.

That may explain why ours hung around untouched the other week. We gave up eventually and binned them. We assumed they’d gone off or something.

I put out some bacon rind a few days ago that was also shunned.

Farm/feed supply shops are often very cheap for huge sacks of bird seed if you have any near to you.

The blackbirds like porridge oats mixed with melted suet and a few sultanas. Also we put out seeds, peanuts, mealworms and fat balls.

Great thank you. How do you stop the big birds eating it all?