What can you use as bird food

Few limits to what you can feed wild birds, providing its organic with no salt or additional unsafe ingredients, which can be super deadly to delicate wild life.

What you can use as bird food out of the pantry or kitchen can include seeds, providing their salt-free, and same goes for all nuts. Cereal can be fed to birds but I would avoid it along with bread. Provide fresh/old fruits, yet fatty foods like cat or dog food can be offered, plus raw bacon rind.

While people often delay feeding wild birds out in the yard, once they've run out of wild bird feed to put in bird feeders, its possible to continue to feed wild birds as normal - only you'd use leftovers or unwanted food found in kitchen cupboards or drawers.

Not actually kitchen scraps but people food that as it turns out, is safe to feed birds.

Its always best to find alternatives to feeding birds bread, when healthier options must be prioritized, which will have greater nutritional value.

Go ahead and feed birds on some original, salt free cereal if you must, but don't make an habit of it. Cereal products and bread are unhealthy yet as you'll find out, do attract too few wild birds, with species you'd probably want to avoid.

What you can do, and what you must feed birds instead of bread, will be any unwanted seeds or nuts, which must be the healthy kind.

All seeds/nuts will be safe yet its better to feed nuts to birds out of their shell. How to feed peanuts to birds can still be in or out of their shell. Peanuts with no shell can go in a feeder of course, whereas peanuts in shells must be offered in a tray, or put on the ground.

Continue to feed wild birds on nuts and seeds especially everyday of the year, as you'll find little seeds are wasted.

Winter is a whole different ball game, and while birds continue to eat seeds and nuts in the cold, they do lose weight so weight loss must be replaced in fatty foods.

Prioritize suet cakes or fat balls if you can, while smothering regular bird feed in cooled down beef fat.

With that, put some wet dog or cat food in a dish as pet food like this is safe to feed birds, yet is the very good fatty kind.

Pet food left outdoors must be for a few short hours only, as it will indeed attract cats or pests like squirrels and raccoon's in due course.

Natural seed varieties

When we feed wild birds as mix of seeds, these varieties will include anything like millet to sunflower seeds.

As you are asking what you can use a bird food - seeing as you aren't putting regular wild bird feed in bird feeders at this time - well, you can practically put any kind of seeds out for wild birds, with success to follow.

Most seed/nut-eating wild birds really don't mind what seeds they are really, just as long as they are fresh and available.

What you can do then is provide a mix of normal seeds to wild birds such as nutty-like pumpkin seeds, which take on a taste and texture like nuts.

Similarly, random seeds you'll find in the health food isle of a grocery stores like hemp seeds or flaxseeds can be fed to wild birds.

All seeds provided to wild birds must be as natural as can be, thus no roasted if you can but unsalted roasted is fine - while its vitally important to avoid all salted seeds, chocolate coated seeds or similar varieties.

Same goes for nut mixes

Similar to providing a mix of seeds to wild birds in our backyards, its also possible to feed all kinds of nuts to wild birds, if they're free of potential poisonous ingredients.

While birds can be fed on peanuts in or out of shells, which Chickadees and Blue Jays like in shells especially - whereby unshelled peanuts can be put in a wire mesh peanut bird feeder as normal - where all other safe food goes in a bird feeder tray.

You name it, you can feed it to wild birds. Nut suggestions can be Walnuts, always delicious Cashews, Pistachio Nuts, Almonds, Hazelnuts, Brazil Nuts, Macadamias, Pecans, and the of course Pine Nuts.

Nut varieties must be bought in a health store/isle in a grocery store which means they're free of salt or other ingredients, birds must avoid.

What are the best types of seeds to provide wild birds will be sunflower seeds especially, thistle seeds and millet you will get a lot of in inferior cheap bird seed mixes.

Do crush seeds up if you must to make them go further, while avoid putting too few seeds in confined feeders if you can, as they will waste. Put crushed nuts in a dish or bird feeder tray, because then they are available for small or large size birds to take.

Fresh or old fruits

You know what, many common backyard birds who visit our yards to feed on nuts, suet or seeds, may also be fruit-eating birds to.

Wild berries are taken in the wild including berries like Strawberries and Raspberries, just as we buy in-store.

With that, you can practically feed wild birds anything found in a fruit basket, like bananas that may be eaten by American Robins, Oranges which are loved by Orioles - and then there's apples, pears, melons and peaches - which are all safe to feed birds.

What you use to put old or fresh fruits in would never be a bird feeder, as wild birds will never take fruit confined in a device.

Instead, you'd put fruit in a bird feeder tray or a ceramic dish, which can be placed on an elevated surface, or position the dish on a deck or porch railing if available.

Oranges must be peeled to feed Orioles while orange slices or wedges can be impaled on a spike.

Many wild birds will feed on fruit yet may prioritize it more in summertime. Don't make too much of a fuss with fruits when other, more popular bird feed is offered - as you'll find fruit will be avoided until seeds/nut or suet have run out.

Fatty foods in wintertime

Come winter, our backyard birds will begin to lose weight as natural food like fruits or insects become scarce.

What you must do then is fatten up your regular bird feeder birds by prioritizing all things suet: like suet cakes, suet fat balls and suet pellets - which all are infused with seeds, nuts, fruits, mealworms - or a bit of everything to provide for all birds dietary needs.

Go one better than the usual suet cakes or fat balls in feeders, when you can cut off the bacon rind to give to wild birds in a dish or tray.

Birds will eat it for sure which will be most birds who eat suet, and that is a lot of them.

With that, you can smother seeds/nut in rendered beef fat, or add real beef fat to suet balls or cakes to increase the fat content, and possibly the interest by wild birds.

Pet food is filled with fat and therefore will be safe to feed wild birds. Wet or dry dog food can be provided, and so can dry or wet cat food - which is a fattier mix, because cats are more active, and therefore will lose more weight.

Seeds must still be provided in wintertime as they are a fatty, protein rich bird feed that is easy to provide for wild birds.

To Summarize

When the seed feeders have run dry of sunflower seeds, thistle seeds or the mix of seeds you get in inferior seed packs, like millet with cracked corn, its time to whip out additional seeds you can feed to birds.

Providing they're salt-free with no special coatings at all, you can feed pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, flaxseed and Chia seeds to wild birds.

Similarly, same rule applies to feeding all types of nuts to wild birds, providing they aren't salted or covered in chocolate and coatings.

Roasted nuts may be safe yet when they are roasted, producers usually blanch peanuts in salted water prior to roasting, so I recommend you avoid roasted nuts if you can.

Birds who eat seeds/nuts and your suet will also go light on wild berries, which means you can provide fruits that are part of the berry family, like Strawberries or Raspberries.

Apples can be provided with less success, yet oranges go down well with the Orioles.

In winter, its all about wild birds putting on the weight they've lost in the winter months, and spring as it happens.

Its important to feed wild birds in winter because they could starve without help.

You must provide any kind of suet if you can, including hardened or liquid suet you can buy in store. Use beef drippings right out of the pan - providing its gone cold - with an option to also feed wild birds wet cat or dog food... which is a nice surprise, and bonus.

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