You don’t want to see old, uneaten food or other caked-on debris on your feeders.

I am guilty of not keeping my feeders clean enough, especially if it’s been rainy at our house. It’s not a fun job, and it’s rarely convenient, but you MUST keep your bird feeders clean!

RELATED: The 4 BEST Finch Feeders In MY Backyard!.

If it’s super dry, then it’s probably going to sit uneaten! If you were to crush one of these small, black seeds, you would want it to be a bit oily. Birds, like goldfinches, want the Nyjer seed to be fresh. Nyjer seed is especially susceptible to becoming old. Well, the food may have been sitting there for a year or two, and your birds don’t want to eat it! Just like us, birds want FRESH food. Did you recently find a deal on birdseed that was too good to be true? The reason the birds have stopped visiting your feeders might be because your food has gone bad.

RELATED: AVOID These 5 “Filler” Foods Found in Birdseed Mixes!.

Most birds do not eat these grains, except for nonnative House Sparrows, which many people try to avoid attracting anyway. To ensure you the widest variety of species keep visiting your feeders, follow the guidelines below:įoods you SHOULD BE USING: Sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, peanuts, Nyjer seeds, mealworms, and just a little bit of corn and white millet.įoods that SHOULD BE AVOIDED: Milo, oats, canary seed, rice, flax, golden millet, red millet, buckwheat, and rapeseed. These foods are not eaten by most native birds that you want to attract. To get the price as low as possible, many bird food manufacturers will use cheap filler grains.

RELATED: Bird Seed 101: The 10 Best Types For Wild Birds!.

It’s human nature to look at the cheapest bag of food you see, which usually has beautiful pictures of birds on the bag, and buy it thinking you made a good decision. When you visit most stores that sell birdseed, you will find a vast array of different options, sizes, and prices. Make sure you read tip #11, as it may be the most important one of all! Below is a checklist of 11 common issues that keep birds away. But there are some common issues that do keep birds away, so you need to make sure none of the ones listed below is the problem. Well, since you can’t ask the birds in your backyard, you may never know for sure what’s wrong. You’re left dumbfounded, looking out your window, wishing for the good old days! 🙂 So what happened? Why did the birds suddenly disappear from your feeders? One week your backyard is full of different bird species, and you feel like you are a feeding expert!īut then, like a bad breakup, they seem to disappear without even saying goodbye. Having birds mysteriously disappear from your feeders is an extremely frustrating issue.

Feeding the birds at your table