Waste free bird seed recipes

March 26, 2009 12:42 PM

WILD BIRD FEEDING - I love my bird friends and they provide endless fascination for my house cats. I have bought "waste-free" bird seed in the past and the birds love it. Problem is, the stuff is expensive and my money is tight. I assume making my own waste-free seed would be less expensive. While I can simply read the bag for the ingredient list, I have no idea what the individual seed proportions are. Anyone have a waste-free bird seed "recipe"? Not suet, just seeds please.
posted by sharksandwich to home & garden (4 comments total)

40% hulled oil seed, 40% hulled sunflower seed, 10% cracked corn, 10% peanuts.

Chipped oil and regular sunflower seed makes up the bulk of most waste-free seeds. I can't claim the 'recipe' proportions, I took it straight off the ingredients list of a bag of waste free seed. Some add hulled millet, as well.

hth.
posted by faineant at 1:07 PM on March 26

thanks!
posted by sharksandwich at 2:59 PM on March 26

What do you mean, waste free? I've never heard of that in conjunction with birdseed.
posted by CTORourke at 7:14 PM on March 26

Waste-free is more expensive. It contains just the "meat" of seeds, no hulls/shells. My front porch (where the feeder is) used to be a mess, with hulls everywhere. With waste free, everything is eaten by the birds. Then again, there still is the issue of all that bird shit.
posted by sharksandwich at 5:23 AM on March 27