Wow. This is just so seriously sad. The current frenzy and fanaticism of
feeding birds is becoming seriously problematic. I saw a post of someone
proudly showing their (bird-killing) giant mesh feeder full of dried
mealworms on FB today. Someone sent me an email about finding a trail in AZ
with over 8 trees slathered in peanut butter - notably mid-summer.
Please please please advise these well-meaning but horribly misinformed
folks to stop. Hamburger is full of chemicals - not good. Also, animal
flesh is hard for songbirds to digest; corvids, fine - seed and
insect-eating birds, no (meat and insect proteins are different). And just
like humans, birds and all wildlife will take a free meal any day and head
for the donut shop over healthy meals.
Our overfeeding of fats is likely leading to fatty liver disease in some
birds (as it does in pet birds). Birds that fill up on hard-to-digest
foods, in the end, suffer as they miss out on the nutrition of good food.
For birds getting ready to breed, this can lead to metabolic bone disease
(which leads to fractures either as babies or even a year later,
egg-binding as adults, deformities, etc).
Finally, fats fed in ways the birds can get it on their feet or feathers
leads to weatherproofing issues. Most songs are preening with their feet,
which means what gets on the feet, gets into feathers. An oiled, greasy
bird is a hypothermic bird, even in the summer if the weather is cold at
night. Chronically cold birds die. Fats can only be removed by soaps.
I will start posting on these issues heavily on Native Bird Care's Facebook
page. And I already have blog posts on fats and salmonella on my blog.
www.nativebirdcare.org/blog; https://www.facebook.com/native.bird.care
In sum - human foods - seeds, some nuts, fruits are safe to feed. No sugar,
no meat, no bacon grease - if it's bad for us, it is deadly to them. No
chemicals, no preservatives. No mealworms unless fed as a minor treat and
gut-loaded (fed up with healthy foods) - LIVE only. NO dried mealworms sure
way to cause dehydration, compaction, and ultimately kill the little songs
(rehabbers get these poor birds in, we even get live mealworm fed birds in
that are so full of mw exoskeleton they cannot eat or poop, they die). No
loosely fed suets - like balls, wreaths, tossed out fats - cages only and
keep these clean!. I could go on for another hour, but I will shut up now.
We all should have our critical thinking and common sense caps on when
pondering feeding ideas for birds. Much of what's on the internet is deadly
for our birds.
Feel free to copy and post this wherever you want.
Elise Wolf
Native Bird Care
www.nativebirdcare.org
Sisters, OR
541-728-8208
On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 9:00 AM Jeff Gilligan <jeffgilligan10@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I hope (think) that posting about birds is OK here.
Anyway, there are several birders in my Arizona neighborhood, one of whom
calls herself “BirderGirL” in her email address. Talking to her yesterday,
I first learned of something that might rival the famed “Sullivan Suet”
formula.
She buys the cheapest frozen Walmart fatty hamburger, fries it up and
freezes some into separate containers. She then crumbles the burger and
feeds it along with seeds to the birds in her yard.
She is feeding 4 Roadrunners currently, but everything but the
hummingbirds love it. That includes warblers, kinglets, sparrows,
Cardinals, thrashers, woodpeckers, quail, Abert’sTowhees, wrens, etc.
Last summer the Roadrunners even brought their partially grown young to
feed on it.
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