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#1
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When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
"Alan Holmes" wrote in message ... Well? Alan You shouldn't have stopped Mike |
#2
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When should you start putting food out for the birds again?
Well? Alan |
#3
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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? |
#4
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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 |
#5
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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/ |
#6
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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 |
#7
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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/ |
#8
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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 |
#9
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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 |
#10
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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 |
#11
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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/ |
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