The perils and false economy of cheap bird food

With more than half of all UK households putting out food in their gardens for birds, the industry which supplies it is now huge. Indeed, it’s been estimated by the British Trust for Ornithology that up to 60 thousand tonnes of bird food are purchased each year in the UK.

However, the difference in quality of this food is very significant, and there are wide variations in price. Potential customers tell us about “The big sack of mixed seed I can buy in my local discount store for half the price of yours”, and there is no doubt that they can, but the reality is that their perceived bargain is cheap for a reason and representing a totally false economy. For one, much of the food will lack sufficient nutrition for most species of garden bird, but it also defeats the purpose if the idea is to attract a wide range of species. Not only that, but the poor quality and lack of suitable ingredients in cheap bird food can end up being hazardous to garden birds, plus attract unwanted visitors like rats. So here we break down those issues in more detail.

In order for supermarkets, garden centres and discount stores to sell sacks of mixed seed for around £10-£15, it is largely made up of ingredients such as wheat and milo (also known as red dari) and other ‘fillers’ which have limited nutritional value to songbirds, and therefore mainly go uneaten by most species. This is also why such mixes typically fail to attract more interesting species like Goldfinch and Siskin. Even common birds like Robin and Blackbird will show little interest if there’s nothing suitable in the mix for them. In the worst cases, we’ve also seen split peas, lentils and even broken-up dog biscuit in bird food mixes – none of which are suitable for garden birds.

Often cheap seed mixes do have a tiny proportion of useful seeds like black sunflower, but in order for birds like species of finch to get to these in a feeder, they’ll turf out the low quality ingredients in the process – which then just end up on the ground. 

Some of the dropped food might be eaten by species such as Wood pigeon, Jackdaw or even House sparrow, but more often than not it will just sit on the ground (or a feeder catch tray or bird table if one is being used) and start to rot. This then becomes an issue, because birds may well rummage through it to find food and contract one of a number of different diseases – which are generally fatal in most cases. Indeed, it is very much our belief that the sharp decline in numbers of species such as Greenfinch and Chaffinch because of Trichomonosis which has led to the RSPB’s warning on the use of feeders with flat surfaces such as bird tables, is partly due to cheap bird food mixes.

A further related issue is poor quality food which isn’t dropped by birds but instead just starts to rot in a feeder, and especially after it becomes damp.   

The other major issue with dropped food on the ground, is that it can attract rodents and notably rats. Rats are most active at night, but their presence can often be detected first thing in the morning if the dropped food has suddenly disappeared overnight.

Along with seed mixes, another bird food product with many cheap imitations are suet and fat balls. More expensive high quality products, like all those we sell, will have a high fat contact which is blended with ingredients such as peanut flour, whereas cheap low quality products will have much less fat and can have various non-edible fillers – even sawdust and sand!

At Vine House Farm we’ve only ever sold high quality bird food, and that will always remain the case. Of course, and as with most things in life, you do have to pay a little more for high quality, though often not as much as some would think – and certainly our prices are very competitive with other brands which offer similar quality (in particular when you factor in our free delivery and regardless of order value). But price aside, the benefits are obvious, because all of the issues we’ve outlined above can be eliminated.

However, if price really is an overriding factor because you have a limited budget to work to, then it’s far better to buy high quality in smaller quantities, than it is low quality in larger quantities for the same money.