"Spring Bored" wrote in message
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"PammyT" wrote in message
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Would soaking them first to get the water back in be a good idea ?
Yes, especially on very cold days where water freezes. This might be the
only source of water they get. Feeding dry stuff to them which them
absorbs
moisture from their bodies and requires them to drink more, at a time
where
there is little do drink, means they soon die of deyhydration.

Utter nonsense!

On that basis, every bird that comes to my garden and gorges itself on
sunflower hearts, niger seed peanuts and any other seed you care to name,
should be lying in the garden, legs pointing to the sky. Or perhaps you're
suggesting we should soak all bird seed before putting it in the feeders?

Anyway, all the people I know who feed birds, also provide them with
water.
Which is why your statement above is slightly ridiculou. Not every person
who feed birds is unlucky enough to live in suburbia where their neighbours
provide drinking water. Some of us live very rural where all normal water
sources will have frozen hard.
This morning I spent half an hour with several buckets of hot water,
defrosting all of my poultry drinkers as they were frozen solid. 24 hours
without water and my fowl will begin to suffer kidney damage so why would
wild birds be anuy different?
On days such as this when the water will have refrozen by midday, I feed a
warm sloppy mash to the fowl and give them fresh fruit to ensure that they
take in ufficient liquids if they cannot get a drinker from the drinkers.