When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...


Well?

Alan



You shouldn't have stopped

Mike

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

Well?

Alan

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 16:29:14 +0100, "Mike" wrote:


"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...


Well?

Alan



You shouldn't have stopped

Mike

I thought there was enough food available to them during the summer
months?

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

"Dan" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 16:29:14 +0100, "Mike" wrote:


"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...


Well?

Alan



You shouldn't have stopped

Mike

I thought there was enough food available to them during the summer
months?


There is and they 'forget' yours, BUT, they have the choice to return to you
if the feeding situation is 'iffy'. My feeders have been very quiet over the
Summer months, but are picking up in activity now.

HOWEVER, if you are going away for a long time 'chasing the sunshine' as I
have done and will be doing again, don't forget the birds :-))) you cannot
expect those keeping house for you, to keep 'bird house' as well :-))

Mike

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

On 5/10/06 16:35, in article , "Alan
Holmes" wrote:



Well?

Alan


The RSPB suggests that you feed them all year round. We do that here and
they oblige us by also eating the nasties we don't want.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 5/10/06 16:35, in article ,
"Alan
Holmes" wrote:



Well?

Alan


The RSPB suggests that you feed them all year round. We do that here and
they oblige us by also eating the nasties we don't want.

I feed ours all year round unintentionally. I don't actually fill the peanut
feeders from breeding time to about now but almost all the local birds
come - to our hen feeders.

Before we had hens I fed the wild birds all year round. The hens do a much
better job of eating the nasties we don't want.

Mary

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

On 5/10/06 17:59, in article
, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 5/10/06 16:35, in article ,
"Alan
Holmes" wrote:



Well?

Alan


The RSPB suggests that you feed them all year round. We do that here and
they oblige us by also eating the nasties we don't want.

I feed ours all year round unintentionally. I don't actually fill the peanut
feeders from breeding time to about now but almost all the local birds
come - to our hen feeders.

Before we had hens I fed the wild birds all year round. The hens do a much
better job of eating the nasties we don't want.


Unhappily, in the past I have found that the hens I kept also ate quite a
lot of the plants and not always the nasties! I think the suggestion of
free range hens here would be the proverbial lead balloon!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

"Sacha" wrote in message
...

Before we had hens I fed the wild birds all year round. The hens do a
much
better job of eating the nasties we don't want.


Unhappily, in the past I have found that the hens I kept also ate quite a
lot of the plants and not always the nasties! I think the suggestion of
free range hens here would be the proverbial lead balloon!

Ah, I quickly learned which plants they preferred and which they didn't.

I'm not a big flower man so only grow those which the hens don't like -
mostly perennials and herbs. That suits me, they can't scratch up well
rooted stuff. I start new ones in the greenhouse until they can fend for
themselves. The vegetables, which are far more important in our average
sized garden, are mostly kept in runs. Spouse made steel framed chicken wire
hurdles, in two module sizes, so that any space can be enclosed at my whim.

When the crops have been harvested I remove the hurdles (they're very slim
and stack next to a shed) and the hens have the freedom to scratch as they
please - and eat the nasties AND fertilise the ground for the next crop. It
works extremely well. The greenhouse houses the hens in the worst winter
weather, there they pick over and fertilise the borders.

In fact the reason I started growing vegetables was because I noticed how
well everything grew the year following our first hens.

This year I've learned that the asparagus must be enclosed too, to stop them
scratching up the crowns, and that it's a bit dodgy leaving potatoes open to
their scratching. The potato plants survived well but the hens kept exposing
potatoes which of course turned green in the light.

The poultry poke their heads through the hurdles to eat chard and spinach
leaves but there's so much of them that there's still plenty for us.

And it's such a joy to see them, the hens (and this year two boys until
Christmas at the latest), and then there are the eggs ... Bliss!

Mary

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

In article , Dan
writes

I thought there was enough food available to them during the summer
months?



I'm afraid I never stopped, and this year they have particularly used
the water baths/feeders as well.
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

In article , Dan
writes

I thought there was enough food available to them during the summer
months?

Summer months aren't necessarily as good as they seem. There'll be
insects, but it takes longer for the seeds to come in. Birds have more
pressures on them with nesting and feeding young, then after that
they're moulting.

When I looked at the advice a few years ago, it seemed that if you want
a break from feeding, Sept-Oct is probably the best. That said, they are
still making really good use of the feeders.

--
Kay

When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
 

On 6/10/06 11:28, in article , "K"
wrote:

snip

When I looked at the advice a few years ago, it seemed that if you want
a break from feeding, Sept-Oct is probably the best. That said, they are
still making really good use of the feeders.

I agree. You'd think that this year, of all years, they're less likely to
be interested in what we put out for them. On the contrary, they have never
stopped feeding and I noticed in July & August, with particular interest,
that they were eating the fat balls a lot.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/