What kitchen scraps do you feed you birds? (1 Viewer)

[matt green]

Just wondering what food scraps from the kitchen people are feeding their garden birds with, and if there is anything in particular that should be avoided.

I can't imagine the local birds turning their noses up at the assorted biscuit/cake crumbs along with a tin full of grannies sausage rolls (yuk!) I'm about to put out for them, however there must be some food products that have a high sugar content along with additional additives etc that are far from beneficial to garden birds??

I once heard someone say ''a well fed bird is a healthy bird'' but I wonder if this is truly the case?

Matt

 

[Peewit]

I would avoid any spicey foods at all costs for a start.

Stale/mouldy food. Even bread in this case.

Not citrus fruit though to much acid, not too good I would think.

As for good foods, I would give them cheese (orange), grapes, fruit (all cut up into small pieces otherwise they could choke) - bite sized pieces - Blackies and all garden birds love this

I always wash fruit too just incase.

Crunched up pieces of biscuit - yes. Raisins and such the likes.

Regards
Kathy

 

[joannec]

Hi Matt

Obviously anything mouldy is out.

I give them anything starchy: bread, rice, potatoes. I hadn't heard that high sugar content was bad, after all it is a carb and birds have no teeth! High salt content is I believe not so good but having said that I still put out lightly salted left over rice which they devour pretty quickly. Bacon rind and meat scraps chopped up very small seem to go down a treat. Old cheese, so long as not mouldy, grated up is pretty popular too.

You're gonna laugh at this but I lovingly make a special mixture of lard and wild bird seed and peanuts and stuff it into a log feeder and hang it up. Picture below: you can tell they like it because it's all gone.

Haven't got any of Grannys sausage rolls but I imagine they would love them.3

Joanne

 

[matt green]

Haven't got any of Grannys sausage rolls but I imagine they would love them.3

Far more than me thats for sure

Thanks Kathy and Joanne

Matt

 

[Marmot]

Just had a quick look at one of my books and they say cheese crumbs, cake crumbs dried fruit. Nothing spicy or highly seasoned.

One of my favourite ones is Cheerios...yes the breakfast cereal. The Sparrows, Blackbird and Starlings love these. I haven't tried them on any other cereal.

 

[NoSpringChicken]

Poor Granny! What's wrong with her sausage rolls?

My local Starlings will eat just about anything going – they are like feathered waste disposal units. Even the local cats look nervous!

They are especially fond of cheese, bacon fat and the trimmings from the Sunday roast. Any bits of pastry or crumbled cake are soon demolished.

I, too, believe that they shouldn't be given anything too salty as they can't get rid of it because they don't sweat.

Ron

 

[KC Foggin]

My Mockers love a baked potato. I slice it open and they feed on the insides. No butter on it, of course.

 

[ayasuda]

Sorry, don't want to rain on anybodies parade but just a reminder that bread is not the most nutritious food for developing youngsters and moulting individuals, please keep scraps minimal.

 

[John P]

If it's edible and we don't want it then the birds get it, (that's as well as the peanuts, sunflower hearts, niger seed, general seed mix and our own fatball mixture).

I really thought the wife would draw a blank when she put out some cooked Calabrese. Anybody care to take a guess on what ate it?

 

[KLH]

The birdtable in our garden actually belongs to someone in another flat, but several people put stuff on it. Cooked rice, raisins, sultanas apples (even oranges - although I'm not sure about the goodness of citrus fruits) pastry. List is endless as to what goes on. Large chunks of cake usually get hijacked by the squirrels, and they hike them up to their dreys for later on at night. I give them flapjacks sometimes, as I am partial to them myself, and am meant to be losing weight, so anything I buy that I shouldn't gets shared!!

Fox will get on the bird table when he can, if he smells something up there - he can do it believe me, he'll be up in the bushes clambering about, usually trying to get something somebody has put out after dark when all the squirrels and birds have gone beddy byes, he'll make an almighty noise knocking feeders and trays around, normally at 4 am, the toerag. So anything not eaten by the usual suspects in the daytime will normally attract his attention in the early hours - and normally I get woken!!

 

[Katherine]

Sorry, don't want to rain on anybodies parade but just a reminder that bread is not the most nutritious food for developing youngsters and moulting individuals, please keep scraps minimal.

I dunk my bread in low-salt peanut butter and then put it on the feeder!

 

[snowyowl]

Not people scraps but something to try is dry cat food. Woodpeckers seem to like it.
I would think that any kind of unsweetened fruit would be good but easy on the bread (as Ayasuda already said). I tried putting cranberries out for robins but they ignored them. That remind s me that I need to collect some apples for them for late winter. I wouldn't normally put meat scraps out although i have left few whole carcases out for the ravens and eagles.

 

[razorsharp]

Cooked potatoes, cheese, raisins, apples, pears, meat scraps and dog food. I don't specifically put dog food out for birds, but starlings, magpies, jackdaws, rooks and hoodes crows, even house sparrows eat what the dogs don't.

 

[Bash]

Kitchen scraps

More in the winter months.............any meat fats I render down and add bits of bread, seeds and chopped nuts and let it harden in a dish and then hang it from your feeder.

Paul...........

 

[KLH]

Hardly anything foodwise goes in the bins outside, all leftover food is given to the birds, squirrels and foxes. Best waste disposal methods going round here - it'd either rot in the bin till emptying day. What doesn't get eaten by the birds in the daytime or squirrels, the fox will eat anyway, if he turns his nose up at anything meatwise, the magpies and crows usually make off with it come dawn. Even the odd herring gull in the garden, all offer a great clean up.

 

[matt green]

Even the odd herring gull in the garden, all offer a great clean up.

I know it's bizare, but I'd REALLY love to get a Herring Gull in our backyard!

Love em!

Matt

 

[Nicola Main]

I don't put out much kitchen scraps but I have put out cooked rice and bacon rinds before. Any heels of bread we have left we put out on the bird table too.

 

[John P]

I know it's bizzare, but I'd REALLY love to get a Herring Gull in our backyard!

Love em!

Matt

A roast chicken carcass will fetch them in if they are around, also see the question in my previous post (No.9), Herring gull is the answer, it's also partial to cooked cabbage, and olives, doesn't really turn it's beak up at anything.

 

[KLH]

Very occasionally a herring gull will park itself in the garden, being by the sea there are plenty. There's usually one or two around the coach station early morning clearing up the food litter from the previous night, alongside the pigeons. Pigeons don't argue with a bird 3 times their size when it comes to a 6 hour old kebab....

 

[snowyowl]

I have mixed feelings about what I'm reading here. I can see why people don't want to see food rotting and prefer to feed it to the wildlife but I believe that it is pretty widely agreed that feeding foxes etc is bad for the animals. It makes them dependent on humans and draws them closer to humans and eventually many are killed when they come into conflict with humans and our ways.
Gulls that belong on the coast now are more easily found at garbage dumps and in parking lots. Feeding them only makes the problem worse.
I really urge everyone to read up on the negatives of feeding scraps to wildlife before doing too much of it.
As for food rotting in a bin, well, if you have space to feed foxes etc then you probably have space for animal proof compost bins, a much better approach, I believe, to organic waste disposal.