Understanding what not to feed wild birds is one of the most important steps to ensuring that youre feeding wild birds the right things. To feed wild birds better, weve put together a short article to share with you – together, well make sure that garden birds get fed!
Garden birds are, of course, wild birds. Therefore, when were considering what not to feed wild birds, we should ask what not to need to garden birds.
Interestingly, one of the main problems when feeding wild birds in your garden is not the things that theyre fed: theyre often quite resilient to the food they dont enjoy.
Knowing that birds eat bread is very basic knowledge, but a number of studies have shown that they can eat large amounts of it without actually taking on board any forms of nutrients or vitamins.
Its tricky to know what not to feed wild birds when youre offering food to feed wild birds by way of your bird tables. Wild birds will happily land there and eat through whatever youve offered them, regardless of what it is.
As a common rule of thumb for a bird table, its unwise to feed birds things that might stick to your bird table, or otherwise leave some form of residue.
A great example of this would be food with a lot of fat or sugar in it.
Feeding birds such rich food as those options can only be bad for them: the intense potency of the food will lead to a bird thats a little unwell.
What food is toxic to birds?
There are many different foods that birds may find slightly toxic. We’ve compiled a short list of things that will be beneficial to local birds so that you can be sure to feed them only those.
In fact, desiccated coconut is harmful to birds for the same reason that rice is. As part of their production, the grains (or coconut shavings) are dried.
They only slightly grow in your stomach after you eat them, which is something we can manage quite well.
Due to their smaller stomachs, birds may experience severe health problems when switching from dry to fresh coconuts; in rare cases, birds may even die from desiccated coconut.
For similar reasons that they might be bad for you or me, moldy or spoiled food is bad for birds.
You should refrain from giving them to birds because they are highly poor bird food due to the various contaminants and bacteria they contain.
Moldy food frequently appears on lists of foods not to feed wild birds because it’s a straightforward item that most people would discard.
However, if you’ve been feeding birds bad food, you’ve probably been doing them a favor.
Additionally detrimental to visiting birds’ digestive systems are cooking fats. The reason for this is actually a little odd.
Most other animals’ stomachs aren’t quite able to handle the amount of fat that humans’ stomachs are adapted to handle in our diet.
With the exception of fat balls, you should never give our feathered friends fat balls because they can become quite ill and excessive fat can even be fatal.
Although birds love seeds when they’re in the right foods, you shouldn’t give them to them if the seeds are still in the fruit that they grew in.
To ensure their safety, seeds that you purchase and put in a bird feeder have been dried and processed.
Because wild birds are small birds, fresh fruit seeds can pose a choking hazard to them.
You cannot give birds onions, just as you cannot feed them bread. This is because most bird food contains zero sulfur, but onions have a fairly high sulfur content. A small amount of sulfur can be tolerated by the human stomach, but not by the stomach of a bird.
Furthermore, onions are not very nutritious for birds, so even if they could eat them, it might not be a good idea to fill your bird feeders with them.
Similar to how salty foods are generally bad for humans, they can also be harmful to birds. An excessive amount of salt in your diet can cause problems for your heart’s normal operation, which can result in a fairly unhealthy body.
Birds aren’t adapted to consume salt because it’s not a common ingredient in natural food or animal foods found in the wild. Therefore, you should avoid offering saltier food options to birds.
Opt for healthier options like wholegrain or seeded breads instead of processed white bread. You can also use bread to hold other foods like peanut butter, suet, or lard.
For wild birds, the application of pesticides on agricultural crops can have disastrous results. If you feed your birds fruit and vegetables, make sure to remove any traces from their skin because even tiny amounts can be harmful. Before feeding fruit and vegetables to your garden birds, give them a thorough cleaning to get rid of any pesticides and the wax coating. If in doubt, you can peel them, but part of their nutritional value will be lost in the process.
Just as eating too much junk food is unhealthy for humans, it is also unhealthy for birds. Junk food, which includes things like pizza, cakes, biscuits, burgers, and crisps, can give birds the extra energy they need, but it has little nutritional value and the chemicals used to process it haven’t been studied on birds.
Inadequate bird food can lead to illness and malnutrition or increase their susceptibility to predators. If you steer clear of these foods, your garden birds will remain content and healthy.
A few crumbs are OK, but studies have indicated that birds that binge on junk food have fewer beneficial bacteria in their stomachs, which can make it more difficult for them to digest food and fight illness.
What should you never feed a bird?
Items that can expand when in contact with water are the main things that should not be fed to birds. A fantastic illustration of this would be rice grains or oats, even cooked oats! These things have a tendency to expand slightly in the bird’s stomach, which is something the bird cannot tolerate. In time, its liable to make them quite sick.
FAQ
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