I don’t even want to know how much I spend on birdseed. Moneywise, I’d probably come out better if I played the ponies instead of watching birds, but when I see my little flock of 11 snowbirds scratching around for old seeds, I go the shed and toss out a couple cups of millet, their favorite. I also keep peanuts for the blue jays, corn for the crows, hot pepper suet nuggets for the bluebirds (as well as sunflower hearts) and I try to keep a fresh bar of suet dangling from a crook. My go-to birdseed, however, is Supreme Blend, a 40-pound bag I get from Sam’s Club. It is hands-down the best value in bird seed. Before we got bitten by the inflation bug, it used to cost $19.95 and now it’s about $29 for 40-pounds, but it is high quality and best of all, it has no fillers.
Those little brown seeds – sorghum or milo seeds – are cheap and most birdseed assortments contain them, but most songbirds don’t eat sorghum. Rats and mice do. They move in and finish what the songbirds scratch aside and then you have a rodent problem.
The Supreme Blend has lots of clean sunflower seeds, some safflower, some millet, and some peanuts. It attracts almost every bird except bluebirds because they can’t peck open seeds with husks. That’s why I feed them sunflower hearts or chips which they can easily digest.
The only drawback to the Supreme Blend is that it’s heavy – 40 pounds heavy. But I suck it up and lug a bag back to the trash can I use to store and distribute my seeds and so far, I have not had to make an unscheduled visit to the chiropractor.
I encourage all my bird loving friends to refrain from buying what appears to be the cheapest seed (with sorghum) and stick to high quality seeds like Supreme Blend. In the long run, it’s the best value in birdseed.