Hello can anyone suggest how often i should put Fat balls out as at moment i am going through a Tub of 50 Fat Balls every 3 days in my Garden

Hello can anyone suggest how often i should put Fat balls out as at moment i am going through a Tub of 50 Fat Balls every 3 days in my Garden

  • Wow that's alot of fat balls....overfeeding in my opinion especially at this time of year when there is natural food around

    (Pardon the Scottish Accent)

  • Hi Bailey, I feed all year round.I have 2 fat ball feeders, one takes 3 and the other 4. I always fill the one with 3 and sometimes the other. They can be emptied in a few hours. I have around 12 different feeders for peanuts (in feeders at the moment, scatter in autumn and winter), premium seed, Niger seed, sunflower hearts, fatballls/cakes/logs. The seed is next to be emptied, a day say, then the sunflower hearts and the peanuts will last for a week, maybe. I don't fill everything every day. The more you put out, the more they eat. I will scatter seed and hearts most days. Oh, and I forgot, a cup of corn each day for the pheasants, so there is always ground food down, but will be gone by evening.

    I would cut back on how much you are feeding. Even although there is no food out, they will come back.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  • Do your neighbours complain on the amount of birds in your garden, mine do they are very nasty towards me
  • No, thankfully we have good neighbours. Their house is a bit back from ours and where I feed them is surround with flowering current which is quite high, all the feeders and baths being on our side are out of site and sheltered.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  • I'm probably going to upset you but you are seriously overfeeding and fatballs are not an appropriate summer feed. High fat should be saved for winter and early spring. You are currently offering the equivalent of a fully loaded Big Mac with extra fries daily. There should be plenty of natural food about at the moment and if you are getting a lot of birds in at this time of year you are risking spreading Trich. I would suggest you go for a no mess food - higher protein and calcium to help birds recover post nesting - it goes out once and day and once it's gone thats it for the day - If you do it now they should safely disperse into surrounding gardens to forage naturally and you can offer fatballs again in the winter

    Cin J