Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ever bought bird food the birds don't seem to like

It will get rid of your Sparrow Problem

Buy chicken scratch at the feed store, they all seem to like it.

I have, but the deer cleaned it up anyway.

Are they the same species of birds? It seems pretty common for varying species to waste whatever they don't/can't use. Some can't crack the bigger seeds, some can't hull the smaller ones. I would bet that seeds whose hulls are a bit punky rather than brittle might be problematic for the little hull crackers and spitters. (That might be seed that was harvested a bit early and then artificially dried.)

There could be a couple of reasons for that. I've grown the primary components for ordinary commercial birdseed for 40 years.....millet, sunflowers, corn, milo and wheat. I've sold millions of pounds of these to Wagner's and others. These products are produced on volumetric packing lines. Each bag must weigh exactly the same regardless of the product mix. The birdseed business is highly competitive and many of the components vary widely in price. The ordinary, common mixes will vary quite a bit from year to year based on the packers input prices; ie. one year the product may be heavy on millet, next year it will be milo or something else. In 2012 & early 2013, millet---which the majority of feeder birds are fond of--- was extremely expensive and milo, (grain sorghum)---which most birds hate, was cheap. Check your mix. If it is heavy on copper colored pellets which resemble BB's that's your problem.

The other thing that some of the posters have mentioned is sunflowers that are unpopular with their birds. 2012 and 2013 were horrible years for sunflower and millet production in eastern Colorado and western Kansas. The quality of both was awful. Wagner has their main plant in Flagler, Colorado and huge amounts of their inputs would have been less than ideal.....not their fault. They have to use what is available. I know I took huge discounts on my sunflowers the last two years because they did not meet normal standards......neither did anyone else's. In general, the two primary components of commercial birdseed--millet and black oil sunflowers--have been very expensive,in short supply and of poor quality for the past two years.

The good news for consumers is that the price of both has eased and the overall quality has come up since last fall's harvest.....which should result in better prices for you and other end users. One final note....sunflowers do not keep well. If you have them try to maintain them in very cold storage. If they were harvested at high moisture levels---over 10%--- spoilage is almost a certainty.

One of the more visible and vulnerable birds you can see in your yard is your mockingbird. I say "your" because they are extremely territorial.

Mockingbirds don't eat bird seed much, in warm weather its mostly insects in cold weather its fruits, berries and the like. They will actually stake out and defend berry-bearing trees and berries against all comers. They have to, that is their winter food supply.

Our own mockingbird has it tough, we have few or no fruit bearing plants around here, and after cold fronts you'll see it fluffed out and scrounging down low in the bushes in the yard, looking for anything edible. Obviously hungry.

We put out blocks of suet and it will take that. I also put out this "fruit and seed mix" in the feeder, really dark colored. Nothing will touch it, not even the Mockingbird.

Birdwatcher

I miss the humming birds!!! I just bought a couple of new HB feeders today. I needed to replace a couple that were several years old. It won't be long before we start tracking their progress north again!

Bob

Quit with the grocery store mix years ago, sunflower seed brought in Blue Jay's which drove all others away, and nothing seemed to like the milo. White Proso Millet disappeared right now. Tried cracking corn in different sizes, birds would eat it if nothing else was available. Now it's only Millet, and shelled corn [from a neighbor, $4.61/bu., non GMO, 400 lbs.] and at times have 8-10 Cardinals on the corn kernels, squirrels are wasteful as they eat the heart and leave the rest. Used to have deer in yard every night, but we got hit real hard two years in a row with EHD. Get Millet in 50 lb. bags, and the price goes higher every year for that stuff. When the deer came, it was neat to see what was cleaning out the corn pile nightly.

Ok I bought new seed

We have a bird in the house and he does not like that food they put the red,green and blue crap in.

I usually buy the stuff with millet and sunflowers in it.

The other is a waste of money,the wild birds don't even touch it.

I don't believe birds have a sense of smell

Our birds have devoured vast amounts of every brand and off-brand of black oil sunflower seeds we ever put out. I got a bag of some gourmet blend of cracked corn, millet, and a couple of other varieties of seeds I don't remember; nothing would eat it. After that I never considered anything but the cheapest black oil sunflower seed I could find.