Following advice from my earlier post I checked my peanut feeder today and found that after about a month, the peanuts were looking a bit sorry for themselves. I binned them and cleaned the feeder and am planning to put it back out tomorrow. My question is this:
As I wasted peanuts this time around by filling the feeder, can I part-fill the feeder this time around? I was thinking that this might make it hard for the birds to feed as the food level might not be high enough once they are on the feeder. So then I thought - can I put something underneath so that the peanuts start about halfway up the feeder? Any ideas?
Thanks everyone for your replies. I have half-filled the feeder and put it back and saw lots of birds quite happily feeding from it (until it started snowing, that is!)
I wouldn't want to get rid of the feeder entirely as I do see lots of birds on it. I have put a seed feeder out today but none of the birds have touched it, preferring the peanuts. I guess in time if they get used to the seed feeder and use that instead then I may not bother with the peanut feeder. We shall see!
It is definitely a good thing to chop up any peanuts that are put on the bird table or ground feeders. This is especially important during the breeding season to prevent chicks being choked by the big chunks of nut. Even in the winter time it is a good thing to chop them first. Birds like coal tits are notorious for flying off with a whole nut and hiding it somewhere to store for future use. The trouble is, they often forget where they hid it, so a lot of this food goes completely to waste.