Can birds eat crackers
Crackers are one of many random items taken out of the pantry people regularly feed to wild birds, although there's little health benefits to the crackers served up on a platter.
It is possible wild birds can be fed on crackers, if said crackers are the plain, original type that mustn't have any salt or flavoring added. Crackers do have salt at the point of baking, but its so little it shouldn't do any harm. Few birds will eat crackers but those that do, namely Pigeons or Doves, you'd want to avoid.
With no spreadable cheese or chicken liver pate to spread on the remaining crackers you have leftover, there's no real surprise people will want to find other uses for them.
Well, you can put a plain old original cracker out for wild birds right now providing its at least low in salt, has no added salt on top - and of course there's no additional favoring's that are usually baked with salt.
Salt if fed to wild birds in large amounts will lead to not only ill health, it will cause death.
Never feed wild birds on too many crackers at a time as you'd really want to spread the salt content quantity, to many, many wild birds over several days.
Breaking up crackers into small manageable pieces will ensure not one bird can eat a whole cracker, while others are forced to eat the crumbs only.
I have to say the use of crackers left out in a bowl, put on a surface or fed to wild birds on a platform bird feeder, are rarely eaten if seeds, peanuts or suet is offered along side what is a human food barely recognizable to our wild birds.
Cracker-eating birds, much like species who eat bread or fries, will include Pigeons, Doves, Grackles, possibly Blue Jays and the always reliable House Sparrows.
You can top a cracker off with shredded/grated cheese if you like, yet a plain old cracker is the safest option.
Original, plain crackers only
While your everyday cracker and water wafers aren't going to provide any real nutritional value to our wild birds, plain old crackers can still be fed to wild birds, providing you abide by a few simple rules.
You must only feed wild birds on what is dubbed as plain crackers that are intended for people to eat only.
Let me tell you now, all types of crackers will include salt in the baking process, while more salt can be added as a topping, to spruce up the flavor.
And indeed its these kinds of crackers that mustn't be fed to wild birds as it can be toxic.
Plain, original crackers by generic brands is the way to go while Ritz crackers will always be made available in many, unsuitable flavors like: cheese, sesame, pepper, snack and fish flavor - of which they usually introduce salt in the special flavorings.
To feed wild birds on cheese is perfectly safe and so is sesame if offered by itself, rather than it being baked in, or added to later.
Go for plain old crackers on what can be labeled as plain or original; with the exception of cream crackers being an option if there's no salt sprinkled on top.
Small amount of harmful ingredients
What is one of the most toxic foods you can feed to wild birds, is either used to bake crackers, or indeed its added as a topping.
Salt is poisonous in large quantity and therefore you will risk damaging wild birds organs on a substance that can't be broken down with a birds sensitive metabolism.
Fortunately, its likely you will only want to feed wild birds on one or two plain crackers, which they all wouldn't be eaten by a single bird, while at the same time a cracker can be shared among several cracker-eating birds.
Keep an eye on proceedings when providing a small amount of crackers to wild birds out in the yard, as you don't want one bird eating all the crackers only.
In fact, much larger wild birds can be attracted to crackers, much like the same species who will eat bread, or baked like products.
What you must do then when feeding wild birds on your favorite crackers intended for use with cheese or pate - would be to use a couple of fresh crackers out of the pack - or indeed only provide wild birds a few old stale crackers to help themselves on.
Few too birds will eat crackers
Unfortunately, but probably for the best in terms of backyard birds health, few too wild birds will eat any kind of crackers you feed them.
Of course, crackers are not usuaully something wild birds stumble across while foraging in the wild, or even at your bird feeders.
Crackers are seen as an unknown substance that is only likely to appeal to a few, more experimental wild birds who visit our yards. And you guessed it, it isn't the kind of wild bird species most of us want in our backyards.
What wild birds are likely to feed on crackers will very but its likely to be the same faces who eat general kitchen scraps like bread or French fries when out in public.
Bird species likely to eat a bit of broken up cracker once in a while will be Doves and Pigeons of course; along with Common Grackles, House Sparrows, Blackbirds, Northern Cardinals and possibly Blue Jays.
So you see wild birds can eat crackers in very small amounts at the same time, yet it isn't going to attract songbirds most of us like to see in our yards.
Broken up in bird feeder tray
With only one to two plain crackers fed to wild birds in our yards once or twice a week only, you'll need to help the cracker go further by breaking it up.
Benefits to breaking crackers up into finer bits will not only stop wild birds flying off with the entire cracker, the larger bits and fine cracker crumbs will appeal to more species who will likely take only a small amount.
With the seeds, peanuts and suet that continues to be fed to your local birds in the yard as normal, crackers will likely take a backseat at this time, which may mean crackers remain untouched until there's little else to eat.
Wild birds are more likely to eat natural peanuts in a feeder rather than broken up scraps provided to birds.
Feed wild birds on one or two crackers by breaking it up into a bird feeder tray, that is either mounted to a pole or is suspended.
Never put regular human food like crackers or bread in a bird feeder, as bread will rot long before wild birds know its there - and even then they are likely to avoid it as food like this doesn't belong in their feeders.
Summarize
Crackers can indeed be fed to wild birds despite little to no nutritional value existing in any kind of cracker or similar wafers.
Crackers exist as filler only much like bread, of which no bakery products should be fed to wild birds in large amounts; only a small amount of crackers can be offered to birds in an attempt stop them starving.
Only provide plain old crackers to wild birds with no special flavorings or toppings.
Bear in mind all cracker are generally baked with salt of which, any salt can be extremely toxic to birds.
Fortunately, as wild birds tend to feed on a little bit of cracker at a time, the salt content shouldn't really cause any harm to any one bird at a time.
Downside to providing wild birds crackers however is that too few wild birds will eat crackers, and those that do like Doves and Pigeons aren't the kind of birds you'd want to attract into your yard to eat out of bird feeders.
In the meantime, only supply one or two plain crackers at a time which must be broken up to avoid an whole cracker being stolen - while at the same time any salt content can be shared among more wild birds rather that just the one.
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