Birds are a welcome addition to your garden, and they are fun to watch, pollinate flowers, and add colour and biodiversity to the garden. One way to attract birds to your yard is to hang bird feeders, but knowing what to fill them with is essential to keeping birds healthy and nourished. Some foods contain harmful additives and ingredients toxic to birds, while others provide empty calories that don’t properly nourish them.

These are the few foods to avoid.

Bread

Although it’s commonly given to birds, bread is not a healthy snack for birds and can attract unwanted rodents to your feeders. Feeding bread to most birds will encourage angel wing syndrome, in which they are born with deformed wings. Bread attracts starlings and house sparrows, imported invasive species that compete for nest sites with native birds like chickadees, bluebirds, and woodpeckers.

Raw meat

While leaving out raw meat may seem like a good idea for birds that eat meat in the wild, it’s best to avoid putting uncooked meat in backyard feeders. The issue with raw meat is that it could go rancid and spoil quickly, and can attract unwanted pests.

Fruit seeds and pits

While it’s safe to feed birds certain fruits, it’s important to remove the seeds and pits first. Some fruit pits and seeds, like those in apples and pears, contain traces of cyanide, which can be harmful to birds. It is best to remove seeds from the fruit you feed to birds.

Chocolate

Chocolate is known to be very toxic for birds and can cause convulsions, heart arrhythmia, vomiting, and, in worst cases, cause death. Birds lack the enzymes required to digest chocolate or cocoa beans, which are the main ingredient in most chocolate.

Old birdseed

Never offer old, spoiled, or wet seed to your bird feeder, as they can go rancid and grow mould that can produce toxins that are fatal to birds. Most people assume that birds can handle eating seed where the bag was improperly stored or left unsealed for a very long time.

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