Feeding Birds from the Kitchen: Dos and Don'ts

It's the holiday season which means.. food! Delicious holiday treats, warm comforting meals - and lots of food waste. It may be tempting to put leftovers out for the birds, but there are many foods that can cause more harm than good. Before offering food from your kitchen, check out our list of dos and don'ts to be sure your backyard birds stay safe and healthy this season. 

Dos:

• Unsalted nuts & seeds
  Depending on the species, a birds' caloric intake need can be as high as 10,000 calories in a single day - that's equivalent to a human consuming 155,000 calories! Some of the best foods to offer birds to help them meet their caloric demands are unsalted nuts and seeds. High calorie, high protein, and highly desired. Why unsalted? Too much salt can lead to dehydration and kidney issues, so it is best to avoid it altogether when it comes to feeding wild birds.
  
  
• Natural nut butter
  All natural nut butters that don't contain additives like sugar, salt, or preservatives can be a great source of protein for birds. Spread it on trees, pinecones, or mix it into a DIY suet mixture to attract a wide variety of birds including nuthatches, woodpeckers, creepers, and more.
  
  
• Unsweetened dried or raw fruit
  There are plenty of birds who feed on fruit in the winter including robins, woodpeckers, cardinals, grosbeaks, jays, and bluebirds (yes, some stay!). Offer these birds unsweetened dried fruits like raisins, cranberries, cherries, blueberries, and currants, and raw fruits such as chopped apple, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, oranges, and chopped grapes. Place the fruit in a hanging tray feeder or in a large dish and position it on a pole system, a deck railing, or on the ground. Watch for signs of spoilage and discard immediately if the fruit begins to turn. 
  
  
• Egg shells
  This may seem like an odd choice to offer birds, but egg shells are a great source of calcium and egg shells are an excellent source of grit and calcium. Chicken eggs should be sterilized before they are offered to backyard birds. Shells from hard-boiled eggs were sterilized in the cooking process, but if you provide egg shells that weren’t cooked, bake them for 20 minutes at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, let them cool, and then crush them into small pieces. Offer eggshells in a dish, or on a low platform feeder, separate from your seed feeders.
  
  
• DIY suet & seed cakes
  Making homemade suet for backyard birds can be rewarding and (sometimes) more cost effective than buying pre-made suet cakes. This should be done with caution as many suet recipes out there call for ingredients that should not be offered to wild birds (see the 'Don'ts' list below). If you would like to make suet at home, we recommend using either WBU Simply Suet or pure beef suet as a base, and adding nutrient-rich ingredients like all natural peanut butter, chopped peanuts & tree nuts, seeds, dried fruits, and dried mealworms. Click here to learn more about making your own homemade suet cakes. 
  
  

Don'ts:

• Grease & meat
  Bacon grease may seem like a cheap and easy substitute for suet, but cooking grease (particularly from bacon) is full of additives and preservatives that can be harmful to birds. Grease also has the potential to coat a birds' feathers rendering them useless for insulation and flying. Meat should also be avoided as most backyard birds wouldn't recognize this as a good source, and there is a good chance it would attract other wildlife like mice or rats.
  
  
• Honey
  Honey has numerous health benefits to humans, but it's not so great for our backyard birds. Even organic honey has the ability to harbour bacteria and grow mold that can be fatal to birds and other wildlife. 
  
  
• Chocolate & candy
  Just as with humans, too much sugar is a bad thing for the birds. Aside from high sugar content, chocolate and sweets contain additives like dyes and other chemicals that are toxic to birds. Chocolate is especially dangerous, as it contains caffeine and theobromine, which are known to cause digestive upset, increased heart rate, and seizures. 
  
  
• Bread products
  Bread is one of those things that birds will eat if it's available, but that doesn't mean they should. Bread products can cause a lot of problems in birds including blockages, nutritional deficiencies, overall illness & lethargy, and death.  
  
  
• Dairy products
  Birds aren't equipped with the enzyme lactase, making them lactose-intolerant like some humans. This means that if birds consume dairy, they could endure digestive upsets such as diarrhea which then leads to dehydration, and possibly death. 
  
  

Ultimately, if you have something you're thinking about tossing out for the birds to enjoy but you're just not sure if it's okay to offer - save it for the compost bin or the trash can, just to be safe! 


Happy trails (& Happy Holidays)!

- Shayna