Usually I feed my birds 100% black oil sunflower seed. I was in a store
a couple of days ago that usually carries it but didn't have any --
don't know if they were sold out or just stopped carrying it -- and
didn't want to drive to another store I was sure that carried it so I
bought a "Birdwatchers Blend" (Morning Song brand) with about 50%
sunflower seed and 50% "milo, millet, cracked corn, peanuts and
safflower seed." I go to the feeder yesterday morning and all the
sunflower seed is gone but in the circular tray of my "lantern"-type
feeder is a lot of milo and millet (didn't notice any cracked corn,
peanuts or safflower seed, not sure how much of that was in there to
begin with if any).

Do any birds actually eat that milo and millet stuff? The company must
have some reason for putting it in there other than filler. I mostly get titmice, chickadees, cardinals hitting the sunflower seed, less
frequently purple finches and goldfinches. Seems like I remember having
similar experiences with this kind of mixture in the past.

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On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 17:38:42 -0500
super70s <[email protected]d> wrote:

<snip>

Do any birds actually eat that milo and millet stuff? The company must
have some reason for putting it in there other than filler. I mostly get >titmice, chickadees, cardinals hitting the sunflower seed, less
frequently purple finches and goldfinches. Seems like I remember having >similar experiences with this kind of mixture in the past.

It's cheap filler, that's why it costs less than the same pounds of
oilers. Birds will bill swipe it out of the way to get at the black
oilers. It just made a mess of things when I tried it early on getting
in to feeding birds. Never bought it again...

I pretty much use oilers but safflower, corn (woodpeckers & bluejays),
thistle (finches - can be messy), shelled peanuts (woodpeckers &
bluejays), shelled oilers, suet... all work okay. Squirrels think so
too ;-) Birds sometimes need to learn what these are if someone in your
area isn't already feeding them the same.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI

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On 3/30/2021 6:38 PM, super70s wrote:

Usually I feed my birds 100% black oil sunflower seed. I was in a store
a couple of days ago that usually carries it but didn't have any --
don't know if they were sold out or just stopped carrying it -- and
didn't want to drive to another store I was sure that carried it so I
bought a "Birdwatchers Blend" (Morning Song brand) with about 50%
sunflower seed and 50% "milo, millet, cracked corn, peanuts and
safflower seed." I go to the feeder yesterday morning and all the
sunflower seed is gone but in the circular tray of my "lantern"-type
feeder is a lot of milo and millet (didn't notice any cracked corn,
peanuts or safflower seed, not sure how much of that was in there to
begin with if any).

Do any birds actually eat that milo and millet stuff? The company must
have some reason for putting it in there other than filler. I mostly get titmice, chickadees, cardinals hitting the sunflower seed, less
frequently purple finches and goldfinches. Seems like I remember having similar experiences with this kind of mixture in the past.

I honestly couldn't tell you about wild birds that love millet. I grew
up with parakeets as pets, however, and I can tell you they absolutely
adore a spray of millet seed in their cage. Not very helpful, sorry. ;)

Jill

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