The key to attracting birds to your backyard is to understand what birds eats what food. In fact, most seed-eating birds have specific preferences. Accommodating these preferences with the right food and feeder will attract a wide variety of birds and keep them coming back. Bird food comes in many different forms and while the most common form of bird food is seed, you can also feed the birds with suet cakes or nectar.

WHEN TO FEED THE BIRDS

We encourage you to feed the birds all year round, however, it is especially important to provide food for them during the fall and winter when their natural food supplies are scarce.

SEED

There are many types of bird seed available in either mixes or single types of feeds. They typically come packaged in plastic or paper bags in 5, 25 and 50 pound bags. A few of the most common types of bird seed include:

• A mix of nuts, corn, and sunflower seeds
• Nyger (or Thistle)
• Sunflower
• Safflower

Like most things in life, seed comes in different grades that range from low end mixes (inexpensive in price) to premium mixes (the most expensive.) You can easily tell the difference between low and high end mixes by either looking at the mix and/or reading the ingredients. The very best seed will look like something you would eat, you will see peanuts, sunflowers and other nuts – this mix is can either come with or without shelled nuts. The advantage to buying the mix without shells is that there aren’t any shells to end up on your lawn since bird don’t eat the shells.

Lower-end mixes are what you typically find in the grocery stores. They are able to offer low cost bird seed by selling mixes that use fillers. Most birds do not eat and cannot digest some ingredients. Because of this, these fillers end up in your lawn and germinate. In addition to not providing any nutritional value for the birds, they give you weeds!

At Backyard Living, we carry the best seed available, seed from Lyric. We’ve compared the seed we sell with the seed sold in our local grocery stores. We found a significant difference in content and nutrition. Of course, our basic seed mix costs slightly more, but your birds get 10x more sunflower seed and nuts (the most expensive ingredients) and over 6x the essential crude fat that they desperately need, especially during the colder months.

Backyard Living 50% Sunflower & Nuts 20% Crude Fat

Grocery Store 5% Sunflower & Nuts 3% Crude Fat

SUET

Suet is a high-energy food source that birds need, particularly through the harsh winter months. Suet comes in a square cake and is an excellent supplement to seed - offering suet is another way to broaden the variety of birds visiting your backyard. As with our bird food, the suet we offer contains no fillers.

NECTAR

Until recently, we did not offer a nectar mix – those we looked at had chemicals, preservatives or stabilizers. We are pleased to offer an excellent nectar mix with no additives. It is formulated to dissolve quickly, and requires no boiling.

Our seeds, suet & hummingbird nectar are carefully selected to provide optimal nutrition, and the right components to draw the widest variety of birds to your backyard, and keep them coming back.