Can birds eat Macadamia nuts
Not a conventional nut to feed backyard birds but its a nut all the same, so you should have no difficulty seeing birds gobble them up with ease.
Birds can eat Macadamia nuts safely with no risk to their health, providing its unsalted Macadamias only with no special coating. You'd need to de-shell them so smaller birds can try them, but not before crushing them up to make it easier to eat. If you fail to crush them you'd see more go to waste on the ground.
Its a joyous occasions by introducing a new kind of food to our backyard birds, but with any nut they can be taken too almost instantly.
You'd have serious issues in your yard if the more common nut eaters were to ignore this fiber rich Macadamia nut.
Whopping nut it is too, so you'd need to crush it into smaller bite-size chunks so birds don't end up wasting most of it as its flung over the ground below them.
To prepare Macadamias for backyard birds you must remove the shell, or that could be the reason they are not interested at all.
Never feed decorative, chocolate or spicy coated Macadamias to birds ever as it can cause instant death - unless you are using unsalted Macadamias only.
Birds CAN eat Macadamia nuts
In the rare chance you have hold of a handful of Macadamia nuts to feed to wild birds in the yard, there's absolutely no reason why you can't feed them to birds.
Macadamia nuts are high in vitamins, protein and fiber; all nutrients needed to maintain a wild bird as they go about their busy day.
Macadamia nuts to use must be unsalted only, preferably without flavoring and never feed chocolate coated nuts to wild birds.
Options available to you are wholefood or organic type Macadamia nuts only, as they are unsalted but with limited flavor.
Unsalted Macadamia nuts only
Its easy to get carried away by feeding any type of nut to backyard birds, but much like their favorite, peanuts - take caution at all times.
Its then imperative you never feed salted Macadamia's too wild birds as the salt can make them ill, later leading to something more serious.
Unsalted Macadamia nuts are not too hard to come by as it happens so you can buy them as is, in any supermarket or food store.
If you can beat the temptation of not eating them yourself then, at least that salted flavor we crave in our nuts is missing this time, so that should help to resist them.
Treat feeding Macadamia nuts to feeding Cashews to be crushed or if you prefer Brazil Nuts - its a similar in size shell nut so needs to be treated the same.
High in fiber benefits
As Macadamia nuts are high in fiber, we can then guarantee a great source of energy food, which is important to know as its vital more in winter than summertime.
I therefore recommend holding off feeding any type of nuts until winter than, but you still can in summer providing you take precautions.
Summer birds can concentrate their diet on an intake of vitamins to make it through the hot, summer nights.
Whereas Macadamia are protein rich, so this energy intake would be much needed as birds tend to lose body fat in winter months - something nuts can help restore.
High in fiber as well has other important nutrition's, so there's certainly nothing wrong with feeding Macadamia nuts to birds as long has you have them.
Inaccessible unless shelled
As you may know with Macadamia nuts to hand, you probably bought them in shells, so you are going to need to remove them.
Much like wild birds eating Pistachios or Walnuts with shells, unless its soft shell like peanuts - there's never a good time to leave the shell on for them.
Backyard birds cannot access shells on Macadamia nuts so you need to un-shell them all.
One by one of course but only do so when you don't feel rushed as you could leave bits of shell in the helping of Macadamias.
Discard all nut shells carefully then prepare to crush them all up.
Large nut must be crushed
Macadamia nuts are far too large for small backyard birds to eat as is, so they would be forced to crush them up in their beaks to shallow.
Only once they turn into bits, while most nuts end up on the ground, can then all common backyard birds safely swallow.
Its up to you to crush up these nuts into something a little more manageable, but it should only take you a few short minutes to do so.
You see during the nesting season in February through August, parent birds bring nuts back to the nest - or feed their young at the bird feeding station or bird platform table.
Its well known that chicks or their young can then choke on too big nuts so to break them down is vital.
Offer up in dish or tray
Unshelled, broken up, then its time to bring the Macadamia nuts out into the garden in an area that wild birds can see, but not to attract other wildlife to steel the nut supply.
First thing you can do is add any Macadamia nuts you have into the hanging peanut feeder hanging off the bird feeding station - better still if a platform feeder is made more accessible so in turn, are more widely available.
Ideally, you'd want to offer the crushed up Macadamia nuts in the open, so a mesh tray or dish fixed to the bird feeding station, or a tray hanging off a wall bracket would be better.
Birds who eat nuts just so happen to eat off the ground, so its still possible to throw nuts over the yard as they would out in nature - as this is where certain species feed.
For safety though, you'd want to leave the nuts higher up as its more safer than the ground.
Summary
Macadamia nuts can be eaten by the small or large birds who visit our backyard, and can be eaten by a wide number of species too.
High in fiber and vitamins, Macadamia nuts are native to Hawaii in the Us while more widely available in Australia - but can still be gobbled up as much as wild birds consume peanuts on the feeder.
Never offer salted, chocolate coated or flavored Macadamia nuts to birds as certain ingredients - such as chocolate - is poisonous to them.
Buy unsalted, natural Macadamia's only which you'd find in the healthy foods section.
Macadamia's are too large for birds to consume whole so they will bite them down, but you can help them along by crushing up the nuts for them.
Non of that is possible of course unless you first de-shell the Macadamia nuts.
Present these delicious, rich in fiber nuts out in the open in the yard, as used in a bird feeder can restrict certain species.
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