Author Topic: Hummingbird and birdseed feeders  (Read 506 times)

Offline whiterose

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Hummingbird and birdseed feeders
« on: March 05, 2019, 04:37:05 pm »
I am considering getting a hummingbird feeder for the tree behind my house. The HOA approved of it.

Anyone here have experience with them?

How about with birdseed feeders?
I have pet mice!

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Offline STiG

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Re: Hummingbird and birdseed feeders
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2019, 08:26:37 pm »
I have both. 

The food is 4 cups of water to 1 cup of granulated sugar, heated until all the sugar dissolves.  Wash your feeder with just water at least once a week.  You'll want to get some small brushes to clean out the flowers.  Get an ant moat - you attach the moat to whatever you're using to hang the feeder and the feeder attaches to the moat.  Put a bit of the sugar water in the moat.  The insects will get trapped in there and not end up in your feeder.  Don't add any food colouring to the food; the colour of the flowers on the feeder are enough.  If you can have some hanging flowers in the same area, they will help draw in the hummers.

If you are going to hang a birdseed feeder, know what kind of other critters you have in the area.  Squirrels?  A squirrel buster feeder is worth it.  Too much weight on the perches and the ports close.  Raccoons or bears?  You might want to bring it in at night to avoid attracting them to your yard.  I prefer to use straight black oil sunflower seeds.  I find most birds like them well enough.  Niger seed, which looks like a small sunflower seed, is great for finches but needs a special feeder with smaller ports or all the seed will fall out.  Wild bird seed mixes contain a lot of millet, which the feeder birds tend to pitch out.  The ground birds, like mourning doves, do love it but I find the millet makes a mess and quite often ends up sprouting.  If you are hoping for woodpeckers, a suet feeder in colder months goes over well.  You can't use them in the summer, though, as the suet will go rancid.  Whatever kind of feeder you get, you'll want to clean it out well every couple of months or so.  Again, no detergent.  Just water and a brush.
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Offline StinkyFeet

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Re: Hummingbird and birdseed feeders
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2019, 12:03:29 pm »
I have a Hummingbird feeder.  Because I live where it gets really warm, I only put in about a cup of food at a time.  Otherwise it goes moldy pretty quick.  I clean and refill it every couple of days.
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