How much of bird feed do you go through every winter?

[beowulf]

I need about half a pound a day to stay regular. Any more than that and I get constipated.

 

[jimmyj]

Beowulf, try the lactose free milk! LOL

Regarding the OP's question, we use way too much seed each year. I average about 15 to 20lbs a day right now, although we do use less in the summer, I'd say about 5lbs to 7lbs a day in the summer. We use mostly black oil sunflower, but also some smaller seeds, and I buy peanuts (shelled) as well. So far since November I have used at least 400 lbs of sunflower, 200 lbs of peanuts, 200 lbs of niger seed and over 50 suet cakes. Add to that the other seed mixes we use for the smaller birds, you get the picture. (I get it all at wholesale though so the cost isn't as bad as paying retail).

Yes, it's a luxury for us, we don't go out to dinner, or travel or gamble or anything. I love being outside and the birds are part of it for me. It got this way years ago because I worked beside a warehouse that shipped bird seed among other things and they would give me about a quarter pallet of broken bags a week for free. Back then I had about 30 feeders all over the place, easy come easy go I guess.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I would have to make a wild-azzed guess, but I would say we probably feed 200 - 250# per year. I use a mixture of chicken scratch and sunflower seed, and for years about 10% scratch to 90% black oil sunflower seed. The smaller birds like the chicken scratch, but in the past if I added more than about 10% the big birds kicked it out of the feeder. This year has been different; the small birds have come in flocks it seems; now I am mixing about 30/70. They go in spurts; they may eat a gallon in a day or so and then nothing much for 3 or 4 days. The turkeys and squirrels take care of anything that hits the ground.

I have two feeders; one the squirrels can't get to, but the occasional rackety coon chile is able to negotiate the gas pipe pole it sits on. If I fill both feeders, the squirrels eat as much or more than the birds, and they waste a lot...so I have just been filling the squirrel proof feeder of late. Like I said; this year has been really weird...the small birds seem to dominate.

I usually buy my black oil sunflower seed at Tractor supply; it runs about $18 per 40#. I don't recall what I paid for my last chicken scratch, but I do recall thinking it wasn't much...and 50# last a long time.

 

[Oaktree]

Business at the feeder started off really strong in Nov, but has tapered off quite a bit since here. In Nov. it wasn't unusual to have to refill a couple times a day, now I'm only filling them once a day if that. About halfway thru my second 50lb bag of sunflower seed now.

Definitely not the variety of birds we've had in the past. Last year we were inundated with finches, this year hardly any. Other years mourning doves were daily visitors (picking at seeds dropped on the ground), only been around a few times this year. Not even many crows. Plenty of chickadees and jays though, the usual woodpeckers on the suet.

I've pretty much discouraged squirrels (and bluejays) from cleaning out the feeders by putting them inside a tube of chicken wire and suspending the feeders from a wire stretched from the house to the clothesline. Small birds can get thru the holes, but larger ones can't. They still get what gets spilled on the ground though.

Dec here was unusually cold, so far January has been on the warm side, both months cloudier than usual. Dunno if that makes a difference.

 

[crash325]

My brat birds get scratch year around. Once in a while a few sunflower seeds. about the same year around. 2 to 6 pounds a day, depending on how well I feel. 2 50# sacks last about a month. Make & boil sugar water for the hummers, they live here year around. Funny little guys, they will stare you right in the eye & tell you how the cow ate the cabbage.
Way too many doves & an army of quail, lots of little chit birds & a few cardinals.
Usually first bowl is gone in a few minutes, If up to it they get a second bowl. then later in the day another bowl or 2.
Fun to watch their sill antics. Male doves want to breed all the time, females not so much. Quail rule & chase the doves. Then chase each other. Have a few cotton tails that sneak a seed now & then, while the mutts sleep. 1 Gray squirrel & some chip monks. Have a hawk that comes by several times a day. He (She?) is fun to watch. Twice we sort of had a stare down. It landed about 10 feet away & we looked at each other for a short while. it gets a quail now & then.
Watching the critters is a lot better than TV. Am enclosing the deck & put in 2 large windows, mostly to see the critters that include some lizards. A snake now & then. Have watched hawks do their love dance ( flight ), snakes make love.
Scaly lizards change color when the feel like it. Some are almost tame. Cactus wrens are also very brave, have had one step on me on its way to get a worm.

I feel sorry for those folks that think Central Park is nature.

Jim

 

[MAN IN BLACK]

I go through 13 tonnes of feed a week for my 17000 birds.
I paid 325$/tonne this week.
LOL !!! We're a commercial egg farm !

 

[BoylermanCT]

I go through a few hundred pounds of sunflower seeds. I typically filled the feeders 2-3X a week. I bought new feeders (exact same feeders as before, but the old ones were beat up a bit) and immediately my usage dropped to 1X a week. My guess is the old feeders allowed easier access to the seed, new ones make them work harder for it.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I put out one 16 oz. cottage cheese container of bird seed out a day, and the same amount of sunflower seeds about twice a week. Winter population at the feeder is just jays and juncoes. Summer time we get jays, doves, grosbeaks and finches.

 

[Redneck in training]

We feed birds only winter and spring. We have 33 ac of resored prairie behind the house and that provide enough seed and insects in the summer and fall. We have hummingbird feeders out few weeks every spring and fall. during hummers migration. They don't stay in the summer even though we have lot of flowers around the house.
What surprised me this year the is the low number of birds visiting the feeders.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have one feeder and a 50# bag will usually last me all winter. This year has been really warm and I have only had to refill my 10-15# feeder one time. Most winters I get a lot of cardinals but not so much this year, mostly wrens, sparrows and a few finches with an occasional cardinal or blue jay dropping by. I have lots of doves that clean up the ground scatter if they beat the domestic fowl to it.
I do go thru about 50 # of corn per week feeding the ducks and geese. I have 7 ducks and 5 Canadian geese and 2 domestic ones that come to feed each day. There are over 60 other Canadians that habitat the pond but fly in and out to other places daily and don't stay around to eat my corn. For some reason the 5 that I feed don't follow the gaggle around and prefer to hang with my domestic geese. I don't know where or who the domestic geese belong, they just showed up one day and stayed. I do know that the gander inter-breeds with a few of the Canadian geese each year and we get some really screwed up coloring on the Canadians.

At this moment there isn't a bird on the feeder.