i buy wild bird seed from wal-mart to feed the small birds around my house,,they will not eat the larger,?
July 29, 2010 Seed Bird Feeder
round,light brown seeds that are in the bag..Does anybody know what these seeds are? and why the birds will not eat it??
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Comments (6)
Hummingbirds are fun, entertaining, full of energy and it’s easy to attract hummingbirds.
Those are millet seeds. The birds must not like them, or they simply
can’t crack them open.
Sounds like you are feeding finches and they mostly eat millet seed. The larger seed you described is seed for other birds like cardinals and blue jays. The finches can’t swallow that large of a seed. If you want to get seed just for the finches, Kroger’s has seed just for them, all millet.
I love feeding the birds, I could sit and watch them eat all day long.
I think it’s called mullet. I have the same problem sometimes, what I end up doing is to mix in a bag of the songbird food (usually a 7# bag mixed with the 25# bag of regular bird seed) and they seem to be happy about it.
What you might also want to do is check which birds are predominant in your area and tailor the seed for them. I am considering building a tray feeder on an old stump because we have a lot of mockingbirds and other plovers (get their food from the ground) and they really go for dried and fresh fruit.
just because walmart carries it, doesn’t mean that its the right mix for the birds in your area, take some with you to the local feed store and ask them for advice, and maybe buy some there instead
I think what you’re talking about is either millet (proso) or milo. It’s just not a preferred food for most birds, other than some sparrows. See this link for seed preferences by bird species: http://www.mdc.mo.gov/nathis/birds/birdfeed/
The millet & milo are used as "fillers" to keep the cost of the seed down – but that doesn’t mean it’s something the birds actually want! Even though it costs more, a mix of sunflower (especially shelled) and peanuts (and hearts) is more to the birds liking – if it’s already out of the hulls, there’s no waste! I also add a little nyger, cracked corn (for mourning doves), and white millet, all of which I buy separately. I also have a suet feeder. I’ve been feeding backyard birds for 40+ years and always get a good crowd.
Could be that it’s an inert ingredient and the birds are not willing to ingest anything that’s not of any food value! All birds are very suspicious about food. If they saw another bird eat them they would as well. It’s a survival thing.