Created with premium seeds to attract woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches and other bird favorites. This no-mess blend is held together using natural binder and fortified with vitamins, minerals and electrolytes – black oil sunflower seed, safflower, peanuts, white proso millet (white proso), calcium carbonate and granulated grit are included as ingredients in this junior-sized suet basket product.
Contents
Black Oil Sunflower Seed
Sunflower seeds provide energy through fats and proteins. All seed-eating wild birds love them because of their thin shells which allow nearly every species to open them easily.
Black Oil Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are a commercial variety of garden variety Helianthus annuus with large-seeded sunflowers used for oil extraction or bird food, or both. Black Oil sunflowers can also be planted to purify soil because their deep-rooted roots pull nutrients up toward the surface, thus improving environmental quality around them. They make excellent candidates for planting in raised beds or Three Sisters vegetable gardens planted with beans and squash as they have high nitrogen-fixing abilities and thrive under harsh environments conditions.
Safflower
Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) is an annual, thistle-like flowering plant belonging to the Asteraceae family that originates in parts of Asia and Africa but now cultivated worldwide for its oil.
Seeds of this legume contain healthful unsaturated fats that may help lower “bad” cholesterol levels in the blood and alleviate inflammation, while its high smoke point makes it suitable for high heat cooking environments.
Safflower seed can serve as an ideal alternative to peanuts in seed cakes designed to keep squirrels at bay from raiding feeders, drawing cardinals, doves and grosbeaks into its fold – all qualities which help make this an excellent option for squirrel-prone areas.
Peanuts
Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) are an essential food crop in tropical and warmer temperate regions around the world, both as a staple food source and oil crop.
Peanuts provide nutrients such as protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. Peanuts’ protein provides an excellent source of niacin which assists your body in turning carbohydrates into energy while potentially protecting against Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline (Morris 2004).
Plant-based proteins tend to be low in cholesterol and saturated fat. Furthermore, they often contain unsaturated fats which may be better for your heart than animal products such as peanuts. Peanuts contain vitamin E and thiamine as well as being an excellent source of phosphorus and magnesium.
White Proso Millet
White proso millet is an essential ingredient in many wild bird seed mixes. It draws in ground feeding birds such as doves, sparrows, quail, juncos and towhees while working well in tray and platform feeders.
Proso is a warm season annual bunch grass that produces large quantities of grain quickly, making it an excellent crop for wildlife cover or as a back up crop in case other primary crops fail due to drought or hailstorm. Proso can also serve as an emergency crop in the United States when primary ones fail due to severe conditions like drought or hailstorm.
Millets can also be useful in crop rotations as weed control aid and they thrive in dry, poor soils. Like other millets, it takes 70-100 days before producing mature grain.
Calcium & Grit
Grit is essential for chickens’ digestive health and egg production, helping them grind food into a soft paste that passes quickly through her digestive tract. Incorporating calcium rich grit into diets also offers additional nutritional value.
Hens should only ever be provided soluble grit in an individual feeder, never as part of their feed (this can lead to kidney damage). Soluble grit can be made of granite, flint or limestone and is available at most feed stores.
Insoluble grit is retained in the gizzard* and made up of pea-sized gravel chips and small stones collected during outdoor foraging activities. This grit helps break down fibers of vegetation while breaking open hard seed coats, aiding digestion.
