Has anyone got any tips on where to buy bird food for wild visiting garden birds?

toadhall99

I'm just about to buy a bird feeding station with good reviews on amazon it has 4 feeders and a couple of bowls,I haven't bought any food yet and so don't know what to buy or where to buy,so if any of you good people have found something that the birds love and you know where to buy it online(and at a good price),that would be a great help.

I have a pets at home a couple of miles away but I don't know if they are good in there,in my Amazon basket I have fat balls branded Erdtmanns no net suet balls in tub,pack of 50    9.4lbs  priced at £11.86 but I don't know if that's good or bad

Misslayed

Aldi regularly have big tubs of fatballs for £4/5. We buy sacks of sunflower seeds from a local animal food wholesaler, £26 for 25kilos

onwards&upwards

Sunflower hearts (not seeds) and mealworms go fastest from my feeders.  Both available from amazon in bulk. 

toadhall99

Misslayed said:

Aldi regularly have big tubs of fatballs for £4/5. We buy sacks of sunflower seeds from a local animal food wholesaler, £26 for 25kilos

Thanks,I go to Aldi on a regular basis I shall have a look,I'm sure I saw peanuts for wild birds last week before I even had any inkling to get bird food

toadhall99

onwards&upwards said:

Sunflower hearts (not seeds) and mealworms go fastest from my feeders.  Both available from amazon in bulk. 

Thanks that's a great help,I didn't know where to start

GBNI

Home Bargains do a 12.5kg bag of mixed bird seed for less than £5 I think it is! The only issue is it does have grains in it which will grow if the birds knock it out of your feeders and don't eat it. So depends on how fussy you are with your garden if you want to attract finches, you'll need to get nyger seed, they rarely eat 'normal' seed. It requires a different style feeder as well. 

Silvertabby

We give them sunflower hearts - all the birds love them, and they don't make as much mess as mixed seeds.  We buy ours from a local independant pet shop.

pogofish

IME Aldi bird food isn’t that great - it has lots of barley, which tends to be most attractive to pigeons..!  Similarly Home Bargains but both are cheap.  B&M however do about the best of the cheaper bird foods with a good mix that feeds a good variety of birds and is often on offer. I also get sunflower hearts from there, although they can go out of stock for some time periodically.

Mealworms and peanuts - B&M or Home Bargains. Get the large bags/tubs - once you start feeding with those, you will find out why - hedgehogs also go mad for them but you shouldn’t feed them exclusively as the worms don’t have enough calcium but a few are fine with other scraps.

Nyjer seed - esp valuable for bringing in Goldfinches. I mix mine with the sunflower hearts and have several pairs nesting in my holly tree and feeding from morning till night - never saw them before I started with Nyjer seed. Tends to be expensive in shops and sold in very small bags. I tend to order a 7.5-10Kg bag from Maltbys on Amazon (who also do a range of bird foods, some very good) which lasts a whole season.

After those stores, The Range has good stocks but tends to be more expensive (approx 50%) and Pets at Home is good quality but up at the gougingly expensive end of things!

If you plan on doing much bird feeding, get a bin with a secure clip top to keep your foods in. Rats also love many types of bird food! The only one I can safely keep out of the bin is nyjer seed and the magpies recently worked out where I kept the unopened bags of mealworms and pecked through one bag and a plastic tub!

toadhall99

pogofish said:

IME Aldi bird food isn’t that great - it has lots of barley, which tends to be most attractive to pigeons..!  Similarly Home Bargains but both are cheap.  B&M however do about the best of the cheaper bird foods with a good mix that feeds a good variety of birds and is often on offer. I also get sunflower hearts from there, although they can go out of stock for some time periodically.

Mealworms and peanuts - B&M or Home Bargains. Get the large bags/tubs - once you start feeding with those, you will find out why - hedgehogs also go mad for them but you shouldn’t feed them exclusively as the worms don’t have enough calcium but a few are fine with other scraps.

Nyjer seed - esp valuable for bringing in Goldfinches. I mix mine with the sunflower hearts and have several pairs nesting in my holly tree and feeding from morning till night - never saw them before I started with Nyjer seed. Tends to be expensive in shops and sold in very small bags. I tend to order a 7.5-10Kg bag from Maltbys on Amazon (who also do a range of bird foods, some very good) which lasts a whole season.

After those stores, The Range has good stocks but tends to be more expensive (approx 50%) and Pets at Home is good quality but up at the gougingly expensive end of things!

If you plan on doing much bird feeding, get a bin with a secure clip top to keep your foods in. Rats also love many types of bird food! The only one I can safely keep out of the bin is nyjer seed and the magpies recently worked out where I kept the unopened bags of mealworms and pecked through one bag and a plastic tub!

Hi thanks that was very informative,yes again I hear about B&M and home bargains,but unfortunately I haven't got one near me and I'm a non driver.There was talk of one coming to the town a couple of years ago but it didn't transpire.That's a good tip about the Nyjer seeds though as Goldfinches have been my favourite bird since I have been a little boy,it would be great to see more of them,so I shall get those seeds.

I haven't got the Range either and I have heard good things about them,and Pets at Home we have but I suspected they would be pricey but wouldn't even have known for sure until you told me.Thanks for the tip about the bin,I shall get one of those.Is there an ideal place to keep that bin,with considerations to the seasons,to keep things fresher?

toadhall99

Silvertabby said:

We give them sunflower hearts - all the birds love them, and they don't make as much mess as mixed seeds.  We buy ours from a local independant pet shop.

Thanks,I shall have a look.That Silver Tabby is a beauty,I love them 

toadhall99

GBNI said:

Home Bargains do a 12.5kg bag of mixed bird seed for less than £5 I think it is! The only issue is it does have grains in it which will grow if the birds knock it out of your feeders and don't eat it. So depends on how fussy you are with your garden if you want to attract finches, you'll need to get nyger seed, they rarely eat 'normal' seed. It requires a different style feeder as well. 

Hi thanks about the nyger tip and finches,I wish we had a home bargains.I shall have a look for a nyger seed feeder.