What's good to feed birds that cats and dogs will ignore?

[iloveeverykindofcat]

The ground is completely frozen here and just seen a few sad adverts about robins starving 😢. I live in cat central and there are lots of dogs around here too. A lot of the cats are good climbers and I don't want to accidentally create a cat buffet (either of food or birds!). What do you put out that birds like and other animals ignore?

Wild bird seed.

I have 5 cats and feed the birds every day. Cats take maybe two sick birds a year.
Make sure your bird table is at least 6 ft from anywhere a cat can hide.
Robins love mealworms.

Thanks. I was hoping for things I might have in my cupboard (peanut butter?) but I can see me buying something in for them - I'm a soft touch. I have communal gardens, there is a bird table but I'm 90% sure one of my 2 cats could scale it. They're seniors but one is still very athletic. Not very co-ordinated, but she never was.

I feed mine bird seed that I spread on top of my shed and hand half coconuts and fat balls up on the fence and trees.

"Uncooked porridge oats are also fine for a number of birds. Warning: never cook porridge oats, this makes them glutinous and could harden around a bird's beak."

www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/feeding-birds/safe-food-for-birds

I've been feeding the birds and defrosting the birdbath every day. I'm just scattering some meal worms and seed on the ground, but the feeders are full with suet balls and seed. Cats aren't interested in the food on the floor.

I've had woodpeckers, robins, but hatches, blackbirds, wrens, wood pigeons and magpies in the garden yesterday alone! And I watched a magpie have the splashiest bath!

I say just try and see what happens.

Seed
Frozen peas

I have feed the birds fruit cut in half, today so good oranges, crusts, mandarines, crackers.
Wild bird seed which is devoured in a day, so I found a bird seed cake recipe online which slows them down.
Punch a hole to put through string to hang in a tree branch, the ones cats can not climb in your case.
Metal bird feeder is great for no cat climbing.
Love the 🐦

thanks for the reminder

Meal worms, fat balls, peanuts, wild bird seed mix. hang the feeders from stiff branches, that cats and mice can't access.

We've got nut hatches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, robins, dunnocks, and occasionally a black & white woodpecker

I throw apple cores into the flower bed most days, that the blackbirds and song thrushes like.

I have one of these hooky things. I put out fat balls, peanuts/sunflower seeds and those square suet things. Mealworms in the dishes.
I get a lot of blue tits, a woodpecker, pigeons.

I have a cat and she likes to watch the bird table action from the warmth of the house. The squirrels make it up the pole but I think well they have to eat too, so I put peanuts on a dish for them. I get most of the stuff from Wilko.

Oh frozen peas! I can put those out today.

I thought robins couldn't eat seed?

I buy mealworms for them despite the expense, and chop up apples into small pieces. And chop up suet.

For next year plant lots of food plants for birds - holly, ivy, pyracantha, rowan, wild rose's, sunflowers, thistles, etc etc Then there'll always be something for birds and other wildlife. I'm gonna start doing this is a big way this year. The shipping and buying of seeds/peanuts cant be great for climate impact

That's a nice feeder @Sparklingbrook . One of my cats is definitely a watch from indoors type. She is a rescue off the streets and has quite clearly decided that she's had enough of the hard life. I don't think she's been outside since November.

The one in the picture is just a random one and probably a bit posher than mine, and more expensive . Most of them have a selection of hooks and bowls/dishes so you can hang anything you like up away from the predators.

I decided to welcome the squirrels because I didn't want to go to the expense of squirrel proof feeders and they just jump up there, take one peanut and go and bury it in my lawn every now and again.

And seed thrown into a pile of leaves has just brought a pair of bull finches in. 🙂

A large and quite magnificent looking raven has eaten the peas.
I don't think that particular bird was in trouble.
Still, at least I know they eat them.