Bird table and ground feeding: our guide on best practice to help ensure birds stay healthy
View All BlogsA subject which we regularly talk about on social media and in content on our website, is the absolute essential need to protect the birds we feed in our gardens from diseases. This particularly means that all types of bird feeder must be thoroughly cleaned regularly, plus moved to different locations in the garden to ensure the ground below them doesn’t become contaminated.
For this blog we’re focusing on bird tables, ground feeding trays and ground feeding generally, and we’ve been prompted to publish this now because the RSPB have recently announced that it has suspended its sales of bird tables, feeder trays, ground feeders and ground seed mixes. It has done this whilst it awaits the results of its own research to determine the relative level of disease risk from such feeding methods and feeder designs to garden birds, and in particular finches. The disease the RSPB is primarily looking at is Trichomonosis, which the RSPB’s scientific research already suggests is more likely to be transmitted on flat surfaces – and especially when those surfaces aren’t kept clean. The BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) is also involved in the research with the RSPB, which we’re very pleased and reassured about as they’re our main charity partner.
Salmonella has also long been a concern and again finches are particularly susceptible to it, with one way transmission is possible being from infected bird faeces which can become mixed with dropped food on the flat and potentially damp surface of a bird table.
Whilst we await the findings of the review from the RSPB, we felt it important to set out what we see as best practice to keep birds safe from diseases when feeding them on flat surfaces. As there are a fairly large number of factors to take into account and therefore there’s a lot for us to cover, the following is a summary of the main points, with the detail of each covered after the summary.
Summary of main points and our key recommendations
- Providing garden birds with food on bird tables, ground trays and other small and confined flat surfaces, carries particular risk to the health of birds because of the increased chance of diseases
- This risk to birds can be greatly reduced if very regular and thorough cleaning is carried out on such types of feeder
- If you are not in a position to carry out this regular and thorough cleaning, then you should not use these feeding methods – and in any event ALL types of bird feeder should be kept clean
- Regularly rotate the location of all types of bird feeder in your garden
- Scattering bird food such as sunflower hearts on larger flat areas in and around gardens such as decking, patios, driveways and short-cut lawns, is a good alternative to bird tables and ground trays, but be sure to rotate the areas used
- Whichever ground feeding method you use, limit how much bird food you put out to that which will be eaten in the same day
- Sunflower hearts and husk-free mixes generate far less waste as birds eat them, so switch to these if you don’t already use them
- Always avoid low cost bird food and in particular mixes, as much of it is not eaten by songbirds and will remain on the ground, bird table or just in the feeder, with this all leading to an increased risk of disease for birds
- Clean bird baths on a daily basis and let them air dry before refilling
ONLY use bird tables, ground trays and other flat surfaces if you are in a position to thoroughly clean them very regularly
This applies to all types of bird feeder, but it is especially the case for flat surfaces and for the reason already outlined above. A thorough weekly clean should be seen as a minimum, but for people attracting very large numbers of birds to their gardens, then cleaning is required every few days. You can read more about feeder hygiene here, watch our video, and see our range of cleaning products here.
If you can’t carry out regular cleaning, then see below about scatter feeding. Note that this advice also applies to seed trays which fit below hanging tube feeders.
Regularly rotate the location of bird tables and ground feeders
Again, this advice applies to all types of bird feeder and including hanging feeders, though with bird tables and ground trays they often become a permanent feature in one location of a garden – and this can be a problem with food which gets dropped by birds or just falls off the table. So move the table or ground tray to a different position in your garden every week or so.
For hanging feeders and including where feeding stations are used, ground feeding often takes place below these because of dropped food. This food can also become contaminated through bird faces from birds using the feeders above, so it’s vital that the feeders and feeding station are regularly moved.
Switch to scatter feeding on larger flat areas
For the winter feeding we carry out on our farm for finches and buntings, we scatter the seed across fairly large areas such as tracks and field edges. This then ensures that birds aren’t feeding too close together for long periods of time, plus the ground never becomes contaminated because we also regularly change the areas we scatter the seed on. Of course most gardens won’t enjoy anything like the same amount of space as we have on the farm to feed birds, but nonetheless the same basic principle can be applied in a relative way. So areas such as a patio, decking (both of which can be easily swept and hosed down) driveway or very short cut lawn could all be used and regularly rotated, but also ensure the bird food is not spread close to areas such as shrubs which a cat could pounce from. You can see how effective this ‘direct on the ground’ scatter method is in this short clip of Siskins and Chaffinches feeding – both species which are very vulnerable to diseases from unclean feeders.
Limit how much food you put out
Unlike a tubular seed feeder where food is effectively stored until a bird removes it, food put out on any flat surface is obviously all accessible and may remain there for days on end if not eaten – which can then become a health problem for birds. It’s therefore good practice to only put out as much food in the morning as is likely to be eaten that same day, whether you stick with a regularly cleaned bird table or ground tray, or switch to scatter feeding on a larger flat area. Even better if you have the time, is to put out even smaller amounts of food but do several times in the day.
Husk-free bird food is far safer, and why you should NEVER buy cheap mixes
Although our focus here is on methods of feeding, the type of bird food used also has a significant bearing on the potential health of birds and the risk of diseases. This is because:
- Husk-free seed such as sunflower hearts and husk-free mixes leave far less waste compared to black sunflower hearts and normal seed mixes respectively, with this meaning that the risk of harmful bacteria developing in rotting waste is much less of a problem, and therefore reducing the risk of eventual Salmonella.
- We’ve long said that cheap bird food mixes (which can be bought online, in pet shops, supermarkets, general stores and garden centres etc.) are not only a waste of money because so little of the food is eaten by songbirds, but also that it just sits on the ground or bird table – and that’s when it becomes a problem. And it’s a problem because not only will it start to rot and potentially attract harmful bacteria, but may also briefly harbour the single cell parasite, Trichomonas gallinae, which leads to the fatal Trichomonosis – which can happen when an infected bird drops uneaten seed which another bird then picks up.
Also of note here, is that if you switch to scatter feeding on the ground, then husk-free seed and mixes are far more suitable (not just less waste but also far less chance of germination from any uneaten seed).
Why ground feeding birds in gardens remains important
There are a small number of bird species which anyway can’t use hanging feeders, such as Blackbird, Dunnock and Collared dove. Therefore providing at least some ground feeding – and remember that a bird table is essentially ‘ground feeding’ for those species – remains important. It’s also the case that some species of finch, and notably, Chaffinch, are anyway more comfortable feeding on the ground.
An important mention about bird baths
We also need to include a very important point about bird baths, because these can represent a particular hazard in the transmission of Tricomonosis. This can occur if an infected bird (again, typically a species of finch) drinks from the bath, with the parasite then transferred and potentially living in the water for a short period of time, but long enough for another bird which drinks to become infected. So our advice reflects that of the BTO, which is to thoroughly clean your bird bath on a daily basis and let it air dry before refilling (the air drying helps ensure the parasite can’t survive). It isn’t essential to use a special disinfectant when cleaning a bird bath, but if you do then it’s vital the bath is fully rinsed out with clean water before air drying and refilling.