Have you ever said, “My birds are picky, they throw all of their seed on the ground,” or “I just can’t afford sunflower seed, so I buy the bargain stuff and add some sunflower seed to it to make it better”?

But nobody is going to fool the birds into thinking bad seed mixes are good by adding sunflower seed. Sunflower seeds are better, that is why the birds eat them. When birds throw the other seed out of the feeder, they aren’t being picky; they just don’t like milo, wheat, and oats. (Have you ever heard of flocks of birds attacking prairie wheat fields? Of  course not. Now maybe if you wanted to attract grasshoppers or locusts, seed mixes with lots of wheat would be great.

Bargain seed is less expensive because if contains inexpensive seeds that are not attractive to seed-eating birds. It’s just that simple-no magic, no mystery. With seed, you really do get what you pay for.

Inexpensive seeds are used in bargain mixes to fill the bag up and add weight and bulk to your purchase. Canadian law requires that labels list the predominant  ingredients in order of quantity by weight. So if milo is listed first, there is more milo that any other seed in the bag. Millet is also used as a filler in some seed mixes. (There are three kinds of millet: German, also known as golden millet; red proso millet; and white proso millet).

The quality of the seed can also vary. You may get freshly harvested seed from floor sweepings. Yes, that’s right, packing plants don’t waste seed either. Broken bags are recycled or reclaimed-a nice way of saying seed is swept into big piles and re-bagged as wild bird seed, then sent to your favorite discount store.

Some people also say, “I know the birds don’t like the seed, but I just let if fall on the ground and the ground-feeding birds such as juncos will eat it”. Well, that’s partly true. Some of it will be eaten by other critters that visit your feeding area during the night. What’s not eaten may attract nocturnal rodents or sprouts into some weird-looking weeds. In contrast, black oil sunflower seed that falls is usually eaten by birds (or squirrels) that same day.

When you get right down to it, those cheap bags of birdseed are not so cheap after all, because the only real bird food you get is the sunflower seed (always the last on the ingredient list, isn’t it?). The $10 you pay for 20 pounds of “Wild Bird Mix” actually becomes $10 for two or three pounds of sunflower seed, and that’s four times what you would pay for 100% black oil sunflower seed in our store.

So in the end, who’s been fooled?

Copyright 2006-2007 The Backyard Bird Centre. All Rights Reserved

 The Backyard Bird Centre

 249 Newport Drive

 Port Moody, B.C., Canada

 V3H 5C9

Toll Free: 1-888-846-BIRD (2473)

 Tel: 778-216-9645

 Fax: 778-216-9644

And now at:

3879 Oak Street

Vancouver, B.C., Canada

V6H 2M6

Tel: 604-738-BIRD (2473)

 e: Randy@backyardbird.ca