Not Egg Shells: The Unexpected Ingredient To Add To Your Bird Feeder

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If you're a bird lover, chances are good that you've done your best to make your home a welcoming space for your feathered friends. Maybe you have a high-end bird feeder, or looked into ways to make a DIY bird feeder with stuff you have at home. But feeding birds isn't just about the receptacle — it's also about what kind of food you put in there. When it comes to bird feed, there are plenty of different additives espoused by bird lovers, with egg shells being a top pick. But even something as simple and unintuitive as a dog biscuit could be the key to attracting a more diverse variety of birds to your yard. 

Egg shells are commonly used to help mother birds feed their babies with a calcium-rich diet, but it's not the only top-up you can use. Dog biscuits are often packed with calcium and nutrients, and they're not just for your four-legged fur babies. You can soak them in water or grind them up to put these treats out for birds to eat. People who've tried this said birds absolutely love them, including crows, pigeons, jays, blackbirds, and magpies. This can be a fun and economical way to help birds get the food they need, especially in winter when their food sources are limited. 

Best of all, using dog treats is also a budget-friendly way to attract more birds to your yard because they tend to be relatively cheap. The Milk Bone Dog Treats are available at Amazon for about $6 for a two-pack of medium treats. Not to mention, this is also a great way to reduce waste if you have any leftover dog biscuit at home that you're not using. So if your pet didn't like them or you had to change their diet for health reasons, just remember that birds would be happy to eat them before you toss them out. 

The most important step when feeding dog biscuits to birds is to soak the biscuits in water to make them mushy before giving them to birds. This step is necessary because it softens the dog treat, which is otherwise too hard for them to eat and might even cause choking. Once that's done, you can place the bird treat in a small plate or ramekin for birds to eat. 

While it sounds pretty straightforward, there are some important caveats to keep in mind. Once wet, the dog biscuit won't last long out in the open. Once it's out in the sun or rain, it can either dry out or mold quickly, which obviously makes them unhealthy for birds to eat. Plus, leaving it out for a long time could attract vermin, which isn't ideal for either the birds or for you. This is why it's best to keep the wet dog treat separate from the bird seeds (especially if you buy expensive bird seeds), in a ramekin or plate. That way, you can easily check on the biscuit, remove it, and throw the leftovers out in the garbage after a day or so, all without contaminating the bird seeds in the feeder. 

Another option, if you want to feed dog biscuits to birds but don't want to deal with the soaking, would be to grind them into thin powder or tiny crumbs. You can then add this thin powder to small batches of bird seeds to help mama birds get extra nutritious food for their babies.