Bird feeders - help me out
- Thread starter John-W-WI
- Start date
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
I wouldnt be able to place bird feeders, I would have black bears lined up waiting for me to refill them. Several years ago baiting was legal on my hunting land, (it is again, grr) and as I would haul out a bucket of corn, I could look around and see bear in the distance watching me, and they would be walking slowly up as I was dumping the corn. Then I would get pictures of bear laying down eating the corn until it was gone. Really wasnt much of a deer draw! I have left smores stuff by the campfire over nite, and they would come out and grab it in the middle of the night. Kinda makes you feel like you are being watched while you are at the campfire.
I love feeding all critters, but in my case anyhow, observing them with some binoculars from 50 yards is best in my case.
I love feeding all critters, but in my case anyhow, observing them with some binoculars from 50 yards is best in my case.
Tap
5 year old buck +
We've been feeding birds since we moved here in 1986. Black oil sunflowers is mostly what we feed and we get the seeds that are still in the hulls. My birds never seemed to go for the de-hulled ones. I've always just used a cedar hopper style feeder on a conduit post with a squirrel baffle. Someone said above that squirrels can't climb 1" conduit...bullcrap. My squirrels (and coons) easily climb conduit and would empty 20 pounds of seed in a day without the baffle. And it's not that they just eat the seed, they hoard it. They'll carry it away and store it. And as long as the squirrels are in the feeders, no birds get to eat. The baffle also stops coons, too. I imagine mice would climb the post too without a baffle. If you're gonna feed, then make sure the feeder is only for the birds. You can feed the other critters with other means. GET A BAFFLE or make the feeder critter proof by other tactics.
My buddy has bear issues with his bird feeders so he hangs the feeder 14 feet with a cable that goes up to hang from a pulley on a branch. Last year, he needed to re-hang it and was 20+ high on the ladder and it kicked out and he came crashing down...He broke his leg horribly. Almost a compound fracture. It caused him to miss a 2 week ocean fishing trip. It may have been a blessing in disguise because, throughout all the scans, the doctors also found pancreas issues before it turned cancerous. He then missed almost all of hunting season. He went out for just a few hours at the end of 2017 just so he could keep his 50 year bow hunting streak in tact.
We also feed suet. It needs to be protected as well. Pretty much everything will eat suet. I make suet from lard, peanut butter, cornmeal, oats, flour and sugar. My suet doesn't get nasty in the summer. I have fed it in summer but I don't normally feed it in summer. There's enough insect protein out there that I'd rater the birds eat instead of my suet. The birds prefer the homemade suet over store bought suet. I could never get them to eat straight lard or fat trimmings. One issue I have with suet is starlings. Starlings never eat the sunflower seeds but a flock of stinking starlings will set upon the suet and devour it. I despise starlings and I shoot as many as I can. I shoot them with .22 cal Super Colibri made by Aquila. They are a pretty cool ammo that not many people know about. They are low power .22 cartridges that are powered only by the primer...there's no powder in it. It's not much louder than a dry fire so other critters or neighbors don't realize you're shooting.
We feed hummingbirds too. 4 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar. No need to boil the water and don't add food coloring. As mentioned above, a bully will take over and guard the feeder. Several feeders spread out so they can't all be seen by the bully at one time helps to stop feeder hogging. Feeders with bee-guards are almost a must. And spraying the post with permethrin or other ant deterrent keeps crawling bugs to a minimum.
My buddy has bear issues with his bird feeders so he hangs the feeder 14 feet with a cable that goes up to hang from a pulley on a branch. Last year, he needed to re-hang it and was 20+ high on the ladder and it kicked out and he came crashing down...He broke his leg horribly. Almost a compound fracture. It caused him to miss a 2 week ocean fishing trip. It may have been a blessing in disguise because, throughout all the scans, the doctors also found pancreas issues before it turned cancerous. He then missed almost all of hunting season. He went out for just a few hours at the end of 2017 just so he could keep his 50 year bow hunting streak in tact.
We also feed suet. It needs to be protected as well. Pretty much everything will eat suet. I make suet from lard, peanut butter, cornmeal, oats, flour and sugar. My suet doesn't get nasty in the summer. I have fed it in summer but I don't normally feed it in summer. There's enough insect protein out there that I'd rater the birds eat instead of my suet. The birds prefer the homemade suet over store bought suet. I could never get them to eat straight lard or fat trimmings. One issue I have with suet is starlings. Starlings never eat the sunflower seeds but a flock of stinking starlings will set upon the suet and devour it. I despise starlings and I shoot as many as I can. I shoot them with .22 cal Super Colibri made by Aquila. They are a pretty cool ammo that not many people know about. They are low power .22 cartridges that are powered only by the primer...there's no powder in it. It's not much louder than a dry fire so other critters or neighbors don't realize you're shooting.
We feed hummingbirds too. 4 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar. No need to boil the water and don't add food coloring. As mentioned above, a bully will take over and guard the feeder. Several feeders spread out so they can't all be seen by the bully at one time helps to stop feeder hogging. Feeders with bee-guards are almost a must. And spraying the post with permethrin or other ant deterrent keeps crawling bugs to a minimum.
I get all my suet from a meat processor who saves the good kidney fat from the cows he butchers. It is the pure white suet, which just about every bird loves to eat. In Wisconsin winters, this is an important energy source for them. As for raccoons, I just checked and I shot 15 of them since last April 1. I keep a score card. I normally harvest squirrels for a friend who eats them, but this has been a strange year and I am letting them all live to reproduce.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Tap - That was me that said squirrels don't climb 1" conduit !!! I haven't seen it ....... yet - but I don't doubt you one bit !! Those tree rats always find ways to get at where they shouldn't be. I guess I'll have to put on a critter guard.
Tap
5 year old buck +
Yeah, I knew it was you B&b :-) I just didn't want to seem like I was calling you out by quoting you...but I still felt like my point needed to be made. Those little suckers climb conduit like it's balsa wood.
Woodpeckers and nut hatches climb it, too.
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Tap - I can tell when I'm being picked on !! (Post #27 )
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Squirrels climb anything .... if they can't climb, they find a way to jump ... amazed at how they always get to their score ...
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Darcy gives ours a lot of attention.
Thats my dog Thor ... he'll watch birds, rabbits, deer, and every other critter calmly ... when a squirrel enters the picture ... chaos & pandemonium starts ... Game On!
Tap
5 year old buck +
Your pic reminds me of our Springer from years ago. She wanted to kill (or at least chase) every squirrel on the planet. She'd sit at the back slider door and whine at squirrels until we'd leave her out. Her paws and claws would be going 60mph while her body caught up in speed with her feet. Then the race was on. The terrified squirrel desperately running for the nearest tree and Chelsey trying to catch it first. It was entertaining. She did catch one or 2 a year.Darcy gives ours a lot of attention.
Then one day, while running at full speed trying to cut the squirrel off at the pass, she wasn't looking where she was running, she was looking back and to the side at the running squirrel she was intent to cut off at the pass... until she ran smack-dab, square into a huge hickory tree. It obviously stopped her in her tracks. She hit that tree so hard that the collision would have killed any human. She got up, and kinda shook it off and came right back to the door. She never chased squirrels with quite the same enthusiasm after that. She was the greatest dog. Miss her.
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