Wild bird seed mixes contain grains and seeds designed to attract various birds throughout the year, making them suitable for use with hopper, gazebo and tube feeders.
This blend features high-quality ingredients that are preferred by various birds, along with vitamins and minerals to provide them with a nutritious diet.
Contents
Sunflower
Sunflower seeds are an increasingly popular component of wild bird seed mixes and attract a wide range of birds. Their rich source of fats and proteins help ensure birds stay at an ideal weight during winter when insects become scarcer.
Sunflower seeds contain vitamin B and minerals such as calcium that support beak health, making them a great addition to bird feeders in winter months. With such high concentrations of nutrients available at feeders, sunflower seeds offer birds a nutritious alternative to insects at bird feeders!
To avoid the clutter under your feeder, opt for hulled sunflower seeds instead of whole ones. Although more expensive, their convenience in not needing to rake up shell casings more than makes up for their higher price point.
Black oil sunflower seeds are another excellent choice, since they’re smaller than gray or striped ones and boast the highest concentration of oil (40 percent) with thinnest hulls – popular among most bird species and should make up at least 75 percent of your bird food offerings.
Millet
Millet is a favorite seed among ground feeding birds such as doves, juncos and towhees, offering high levels of protein with a pleasant, sweet flavor that attracts these small birds to feed on it.
As it provides another source of carbohydrate energy that they may otherwise not receive through their regular diet, this food source is an effective means of weaning your bird off oil seeds and nuts.
Cowbirds and house sparrows also love millet, making it an attractive food source.
Millet is an increasingly popular addition to wild bird seed mixes as its miniature popcorn kernel-like seeds attract birds that would normally not take an interest in other varieties such as safflower and sunflower. Millet can also be offered alone or combined into blends of birdseed.
Peanuts
Peanuts are one of the most beloved bird food ingredients and offer numerous advantages for wild birds. Not only are they high in protein and healthy fats, but their use provides them with essential nutrition.
Birds rely on these seeds as a vital source of energy during colder seasons.
But to guarantee their quality and safety, it is crucial that peanuts come from a reputable supplier in order to avoid contamination with aflatoxin fungi, which produces toxicants in peanuts that can prove deadly for birds.
If you want to give peanuts to your birds, choose whole or split varieties. When giving whole peanuts as treats, feed them through a mesh feeder so young birds do not choke on the seeds.
Safflower
Introducing something different into your yard by planting Safflower seed! Not all birds like it, but its fats, proteins and fiber content provide essential nutrition for backyard wildlife health and happiness.
Safflower may have one major drawback – its hard shell prevents some birds from cracking it open to access its contents, leading fewer species than usual to find comfort here; nonetheless, cardinals, grosbeaks, chickadees and house finches find this seed an attractive food source.
Safflower can be purchased locally at pet and wild bird stores as well as online birdseed retailers; online options also carry some. Safflower may also be included in high-quality “cardinal blend” mixes that contain more safflower than less expensive bird foods; such premium mixes may cost more but their high quality content makes up for any additional costs involved.
