I recently bought a bird feeder for wild birds and I've never dealt with this type of feeder before. I've had parakeets so I know I should wash it, but should I use soap?
Also, where should I put it?
Well, I usually have mostly dealt with Hummingbird feeders. I've had a feeder similar to that before (a yellow one for the little goldfinches). I think you probably shouldnt use soap, just run warm water through it and make sure it doesnt smell like plastic/have any dirt or film on it/in it. Use a cloth to scrub it gently I guess.
Get some seeds that are in the shells since eventhough theyre more messy, the unshelled seeds can get mouldy and since some birds are very senstive it can kill them unless they eat it all right away.
I think from the looks of it that feeder requires those small black seeds (the name currently escapes me).
Put it somewhere not far from trees or places to hide in case a large prey bird comes by and scares the songbirds. Also try and put it somewhere bugs wont just crawl in, so no hanging it from a tree since then you'll get sap all over it too. Dont hang it right from a house since it'll be too messy (unless you happen to have a really great location).
These are the feeding seeds.
The feeder said close the circular spheres for
Thistles and open them accordingly to your type of feed. Is thistles the word?lol
And those are the deshelled seeds, if you use those make sure you put the feeder somewhere it can't get rain in (if it's in a dry enviroment it'll be okay). If the birds don't eat it up fast enough just dump it out every so often to be safe.
Btw, the birds love peanuts though if you have bears in your area it may attract them, raccoons and squirrels as well.
Well that's not good. We have a lot of wildlife in our neighborhood, though not bears.
We get a TON of birds and it has millet in it so I'm sure they will be eating it up.
If not I'll just do what you said and dump it out. I hope I don't make them fat though XD they will never stop eating millet.
I actually doubt a raccoon will be able to crawl up that high so they won't stick around and as long as you put it somewhere a squirrel can't knock it down easy you should be okay :3
They most likely will, when I had a feeder up the finches ate it all pretty fast, except on occasion when they weren't around and so we just put in fresh seeds.
And okay ^_^ I'm sure they won't get fat, since theyre so active but if you somehow start seeing lazy looking chubby birds you might wanna take it down awhile, LOL XD
