Wild bird food

If buying anything from PaH, join Pets at home - VIP for discounts and money off voucher mailings.

Some PaH stores will actually scan virtually every every coupon you hand over, whatever it's for, getting costs down nicely, others not so friendly.

 

I think my Quote was misleading and i'm sorry

Free postage for any order of 12.5 kg and above
Or
Free postage for any order of £25 and over

 

Thank you everyone for your responses. The address you quoted for Pets at Home @ARMANDII is on the same estate where I shop weekly, 18 miles away. I'll pop in there and check them out this coming week.

The problem with buying online here is that the Highlands are usually treated the same way as islands. They either won't deliver here or they hike delivery/postage costs which in turn makes it dearer than buying locally. I'll check online deliveries against local buying, I don't suppose there'll be much difference.

At the moment I'm buying small packs of food to experiment with what my fussy birds will or won't eat. They won't touch niger, millet or what I believe is a large amount of barley in many of the individual mixed seed packs, they leave it on the table. No wastage though as I sweep this into a dustpan and put it on the slabs below where the pheasants come and clear it. One pre-formed fat ball I put out three weeks ago is still pretty much intact, so I won't bother with those again.
I've just bought a different type of mix that doesn't contain barley or millet which I'll try them with. I'll also be experimenting with a suet mix.

@CanadianLori - The Finch and Tit families will clear black sunflower very quickly, they also like peanuts but they aren't so popular. I also put out dried Mealworms for the Robins and a few of the Finches will tackle those too. When I experiment with the new seed I've bought I will let you know if it's successful and will give you a list of the contents.

 

@Sheal I have experienced the same problem with millet. They flick it aside onto the deck and that encourages rats/other unwanted visitors.
I only put the feeder up from late autumn to spring as there is pleanty of other bounty for them to access outside of this time frame.

I'm not stingy.. just trying to make sure they are forced to be a little wild/forage.

 

The only birds I know that are interested in millet are Budgerigars and possibly Canaries Lori.

 

Never even considered using my pets at home vouchers.. ever. They always seem to be for some obscure cat food.. I'm reluctant to switch, one cat has dodgy guts. So off topic sorry.

Has anyone made their own fat balls? I like feeding the birds but at the rate they're going through food.. it's quite expensive considering they're not my birds!

Any good suppliers of big tubs of mealworms about too?

Sorry to barge in Sheal

 

I spend a small fortune feeding the birds. I buy a mix called Colonel, made by Bartholomews, a Sussex seed merchant. I don’t know how widely available it is but it is a pretty good price, about £11 for 20 kg. They also sell black sunflower seeds for about £13 for 15 kg. These are the best prices I’ve found around here. Garden Bird,an online co has good prices on sunflower hearts when bought in bulk; I’ve also bought peanuts from them. They have an eBay shop too.
GardenBird - Quality Garden Bird Food Online
Sometimes they have broken peanuts which are a lot cheaper and the birds don’t care if they are broken! Fat balls I buy whenever I see a good price; check out B&Q who sometimes have special offers. I also save fat from cooking and mix some seed in with it which is popular too.

 

I make my own fat "balls" (I actually use old candle glasses, etc, so they are designed to cope with the heat.)
We are not on mains drainage (septic tank), so have to seperate off all fat before doing the washing up. Juices from roasts etc go into old mugs or candle glasses, and into the fridge. The fat is scraped off the top (can be up to half an Ikea candle glass, from a lamb shoulder), and mixed with standard bird seed, then returned to the glass (jelly having been set aside for dog-treat). Once it's set, I either put it out directly, in the container, or sit the container in a warm water-bath for a few minutes, after which the set mix slips out easily. If we have sausages, I mix the seed direct in the frying pan afterwards, as too strong-smelling to have in fridge too long. Birds seem to enjoy, and costs us just the cost of the seed. Oh, sometimes I mix in a few breadcrumbs too - from the stale crusts that get crumbed and frozen. Yikes, I'm sounding like a wartime housewife!!

 

That's fantastic thank you.. I did wonder if it was simply used meat fat mixed with seed they could have. Although most of my fat goes into my gravy if I make a roast..(just call me Miss Piggy.) I'll give it a bash.

 

Talking of which @Sian in Belgium..... I very rarely eat bread now but used those crusts to make a bread pudding from a wartime recipe.

 

@CanadianLori I promised to report back on the new mixed seed I'd bought. It contains....

Red Dari (milo)
Millet
Naked Oats
Sunflower Hearts
Nyjer seed

Although the birds cleared everything except the Millet, I won't bother with it again as I can make my own mix excluding the Millet, Sunflower hearts and the Nyjer. For some reason the birds wouldn't eat the Nyjer when I put it out separately and I already give the birds Black Sunflower in a feeder. I've also tried them with suet pellets for the first time and they disappeared quickly too.

 

@Sheal . That is exactly what I wanted to know.