Wild bird food, sunflower hearts etc

twiglet98

Also in OS Moneysaving...

I've been buying sunflower hearts loose at my local farm shop for £1.90/kg, and black sunflower seeds at 85p/kg. Does anyone here buy in bulk, and what is a fair price for a big (say, 20kg) sack? Is it best to bulk buy online and pay delivery charges, or from a retail outlet? I'm a long drive from a retail park so it needs to be worth the diesel to go for bird food, though if visiting Pets At Home, Wickes or Focus DIY I could probably get cat litter at the same place, and shop at Lidl on the same retail park!

janejamie

Hi twiglet

Definitely worth buying bulk if you have the storage room. Ordering sunflower hearts online gets you £1.6/kg at the 20+ kg size and if you shop around it can be free delivery too. I usually order from Wild Bird Direct but today it's £9 more than the last order two months ago so have just ordered from Really Wild Birdfood Co for the first time (sorry, can't post the link).

Keep an eye out for the quality too, tho, as some cheaper places give dusty and broken seeds: birds prob don't mind but I reckon it's an indication of careless storage and handling.

No trees were harmed in the posting of this message, but many electrons were seriously inconvenienced

hethmar

Can I jump in here please? Re wild bird food. I was told by my friend to get some Niger seeds as we have a lot of finches. In her garden she has two containers and the finches were all over them. Ive had my special niger seed container hanging in three different places for the past month and not one bird, let alone finch has used it Can anyone shed some light please?

The other normal seed containers are in constant use as are the bird tables, covered in all sorts of birds, including varieties of finch

ethansmum

Same problem here. I got a humongous 12.75kg bag of wild bird seed from Costco for about £6. I put out the hanging cointainers everywhere, but i also put some on my paving slabs. The hanging feeders and bird table are never touched but the floor is pecked clean within a couple of hours. Also I only get 2 wood pigeons, a single red Robin and 3 blackbirds as visitors to the garden. Its been a good month now since I started feeding them . Will I ever get any other visitors? Should I continue to throw the seeds on the ground?

hethmar

I get hundreds of other birds on the tables and the nut hangers and fat balls - it just this damn Niger container that the finches are sposed to love and arent touching. I spoke to the guy in the pet shop and he says it takes time for them to work out how to use the small holes on the niger feeders but Ive not had one even trying to work it out.

May be your bird seed mix isnt attractive to a lot of the bird species? Buy a small bag of the more expensive stuff and see if they come for that. Its wonderful when they are all out there, I think my favourites are the long tailed tits, who all arrive together about 8 or 10 at a time and all twittering like a bunch of school girls

ljonski

My Niger seed and container lay untouched for 6-7 weeks and then bingo - the green finches simply cant get enough and 3 fight continuously for the 2 perches and ignore the sunflower and wild bird seed. ordered 6kg on saturday which has just arrived this instant.

hethmar

Really? You think they would work it out a bit quicker wouldnt you - lol. I mean its right next to a "normal" type feeder, would have thought one of them would have had the curiosity to poke his beak in the little holes on the niger one. Expensive stuff too.

As an aside, I was in the states last year and oh, the wonder of seeing little humming birds come right up to the cabin window to take the honey/water mix from the feeders. Brilliant.