Bird diets
Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2020 2:00 pm
Like many people lucky enough to be blessed with a garden I hang out food for the local birds - mostly sparrows and pigeons. I have two feeders one gets filled with a seed mix, the other gets a mix of suet pellets and the seeds. (Suet balls have all disappeared from my local shops, I didn't realise shortages had got so desperate).
The suet is ravenously gobbled down within a few hours - literally between my breakfast and lunch - the pure seeds will last a day or two. Is this healthy for the birds? am I just providing the equivalent of a kebab shop, not necessarily bad, but unwise to be consumed every day? Should I limit how much I put out? Is there a sufficiently wide base of birds that individually it doesn't matter? (I've had a crowds upto 30 sparrows, 13 pigeons and a handful of starlings). Are birds sensible enough (bird brained?) to regulate their choices of what's available?
So far I've just been topping them up every couple of days once they've eaten the seeds they can have some more fat, but they still get through a couple of kg of seed a week!
The suet is ravenously gobbled down within a few hours - literally between my breakfast and lunch - the pure seeds will last a day or two. Is this healthy for the birds? am I just providing the equivalent of a kebab shop, not necessarily bad, but unwise to be consumed every day? Should I limit how much I put out? Is there a sufficiently wide base of birds that individually it doesn't matter? (I've had a crowds upto 30 sparrows, 13 pigeons and a handful of starlings). Are birds sensible enough (bird brained?) to regulate their choices of what's available?
So far I've just been topping them up every couple of days once they've eaten the seeds they can have some more fat, but they still get through a couple of kg of seed a week!