Can Birds Eat Christmas Cake?

What is the best food to feed a houseful of wild birds during Christmas? As most people know, wild birds are a little different than the domesticated ones, so you may be wondering what your options are as far as which foods to feed them.

What do birds eat?

Even though wild birds love to eat insects and seeds, there are other things they prefer over all of these things.

You need to provide your house guests with something they can eat while they are visiting, and without the added sugar in the typical food, they are used to.

There are some wild birds that are designed to eat fruit, especially bananas because this fruit goes through natural molting season.

This is good news for those of us who like to offer fruit to our visitors at Christmas.

Now let’s consider whether you can feed your house guests corn or raisins during their bird’s meals.

Corn is not native to North America, but it does have a certain taste that is similar to figs.

If you can find and freeze corn, then you will be able to keep your bird’s meals fresh for several days, especially if you’re keeping them on the diet they prefer.

Just make sure you give the bird something to munch on after they finish eating the corn.

Get Nutty

Other wild birds that will do well with some nuts are the small redpolls, blackballs, and thrushes.

Once you’ve gotten used to giving them a diet that is nut-based, you’ll be able to give your guests an alternative when it comes to snacks.

With the exception of the chicken’s diet, there is nothing nut-based in wild bird food. Their diet consists mainly of insects, seeds, and berries.

So if you know your wild birds well, and you are certain they will not take anything out of your garden with them when they go back to their bird homes, then you can give them something to munch on while they are here.

Of course, these dishes will need to be pureed, so there is still some work to do if you want them to be completely safe.

The Essentials

For many of the wild birds, you will need to use a wire cage to feed them because it allows them to get to the air and use the air for fuel.

This will require a special wire mesh since these birds like to peck and claw at the cage.

You will need to make sure they have enough clean water for the whole time they are inside the feeder.

Even though this is one of the benefits of having a feeder that is built into the wall, you still want to be prepared for potential problems that might arise.

When you’re ready to have wild birds eating at your house, remember the basics of bird food before you start anything.

And remember that it’s always a good idea to have a few extra bird seed and insects in case anything goes wrong.