"Martin Sykes" wrote
"David Hill" wrote
A slight twist in the thread. I usually mix a bit of lard with the suet I
use to make the bird food for the Tits, but found today that Lard has
disappeared from the supermarkets, I was told it has all been withdrawn,
but
no one knew why.......
Anyone heard anything?
Maybe our Ukrainian immigrants have bought it all and the supermarkets are
just guilty of not getting in extra to meet the demand -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3713028.stm

But seriously, the article also implies that a poor grain harvest this year
is somehow linked to reduced lard production.
Martin & Anna Sykes

Funny I always thought lard came from animals.............:~)
Jenny

In message , ex WGS Hamm
writes

wrote in message
...

I would have thought that most wildlife instinctively know what's good
and safe to eat.

Rats are smart. Eat a small amount to try it and if they feel no ill
effects eat some more some tie later. Other smaller rodents are pretty
stupid and eat enough to kill or disable them on the first encounter. I
grow various tropical plants with nasty seeds that are very effective
rodent killers.

You are wrong I'm afraid. Animals and birds will scoff ultra fatty stuff or
salty stuff. Salt kills a bird very quickly. I keep parrots so am a bit
careful as to what I feed.(40+ expensive parrots). My sister once fed her
beloved hens some avocado thinking she was giving them an expensive treat.
She got up next day, opened the henhouse to find all her hens dead. Yes,
avocado is poisonous to most birds and animals. I once had a rescue dog raid
the bin and eat avocado peelings and chewed the stone.

I can imagine the stone might well be seriously toxic. But what is the
risk with avocado flesh? We used to feed our hens with all kitchen
scraps and I expect they got the odd bit of avocado thrown in from time
to time.

Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge tree in
our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to bother them.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
In message , ex WGS Hamm
writes

wrote in message
...

I would have thought that most wildlife instinctively know what's good
and safe to eat.

Rats are smart. Eat a small amount to try it and if they feel no ill
effects eat some more some tie later. Other smaller rodents are pretty
stupid and eat enough to kill or disable them on the first encounter. I
grow various tropical plants with nasty seeds that are very effective
rodent killers.

You are wrong I'm afraid. Animals and birds will scoff ultra fatty stuff
or
salty stuff. Salt kills a bird very quickly. I keep parrots so am a bit
careful as to what I feed.(40+ expensive parrots). My sister once fed her
beloved hens some avocado thinking she was giving them an expensive
treat.
She got up next day, opened the henhouse to find all her hens dead. Yes,
avocado is poisonous to most birds and animals. I once had a rescue dog
raid
the bin and eat avocado peelings and chewed the stone.

I can imagine the stone might well be seriously toxic. But what is the
risk with avocado flesh? We used to feed our hens with all kitchen
scraps and I expect they got the odd bit of avocado thrown in from time
to time.
Avocado is supposedly poisonous to most animals except humans and some
monkies. I have heard people on parrot newsgroups tell of ill effects from
giing their birds avocado.
This isn't unusual as there are plenty of foods which humans can eat which
are poisonous to birds.

Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge tree in
our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to bother them.

Try eating them yourself, you will soon find out that what one species can
safely eat, isn't necessarily safe for another species.

Martin Brown wrote:
In message ,[...]
Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge
tree
in our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to bother
them.

Yew berries are different. The flesh isn't as poisonous as the rest
of the plant: it's not a good idea, but you can even eat one yourself
without coming to any harm if you take care not to swallow the deadly
seed (I've done it: the flesh is sweet and slimy). The seed is as
toxic as the other parts of the tree. Possibly it's less toxic to
birds (my HMSO book on poisonous plants annoyingly doesn't mention
its effect on poultry), or maybe a bird is safe if its digestive
system doesn't break into the seed, and it's voided intact at the end
of the process. Given that chicken have seed-eating digestions, that
surprises me a bit.

Mike.

"ex WGS Hamm" wrote in message
...

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
snip


Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge tree in
our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to bother them.

Try eating them yourself, you will soon find out that what one species
can
safely eat, isn't necessarily safe for another species.



I hope that advice wasn't intended to be taken literally - although the
flesh of the yew berry is not toxic, the seeds are very toxic indeed. If one
were lucky, the seeds would pass through the system without being ingested,
but one would have to be crazy to try it, IMO.

BAC wrote:
"ex WGS Hamm" wrote in message
...

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
snip


Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge
tree in our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to
bother them.

Try eating them yourself, you will soon find out that what one
species can safely eat, isn't necessarily safe for another
species.



I hope that advice wasn't intended to be taken literally - although
the flesh of the yew berry is not toxic, the seeds are very toxic
indeed. If one were lucky, the seeds would pass through the system
without being ingested, but one would have to be crazy to try it,
IMO.

Slight modification called for here. The fleshy seed-cup _is_ toxic,
just not very much so. The HMSO poisonous plants book I mentioned
upthread says children have died after eating these "cups".

Mike.

Message from Martin Brown on Wed, 20
Oct 2004 20:28:38 Slightly OT-Feeding Birds:

Birds can more or less safely eat yew berries - there was a huge tree
in our hen pen and despite the toxicity it never seemed to bother them.

At least twice I've seen blackbirds swallow black, Cherry Laurel
berries.
--

The message
from "ex WGS Hamm" contains these words:



I admit to being a softy. I have 3 bird tables and buy a sack of
sunflower
seed, a smaller bag of peanuts, and a sack of budgie seed at the start
of
winer. I mix them together with some of the mixed corn I feed my
chickens
on. The 2 sacks will cost around £20 and the peanuts around a fiver.
This
little lot will feed the wild birds all winter plus some safe scraps. I
also
buy fat balls which you can get very cheaply from £1 shops and QD and
wilkinsons.
On my weekly trips to the abbatoir for bones for my 7 dogs, I also get
a
carrier bag of fat which I hang on tree branches. That attracts dozens
of
starlings and blue tits.
To be honest a sack of wild bird mix will only cost around £9 and if
you
only have one bird table, that plus a few dozen fat balls will feed
hundreds
of birds and help them survive until next spring. They will reward you
with
beautiful songs and hours of entertainment through your winter on a cold
winters day :0)


The birds in your area must be few and far between. Mine scoff about a
half
a hundredweight of peanuts every two months, summer and winter @ £15 per
sack.
They also get seed and pigeon mix.
Must admit that the woodpecker family does account for the consumption of
a
considerable proportion of the nuts.
Don't know much obout beautiful songs though - the collar doves tend to
have
the same effect as cocks crowing first thing in the morning with their
coo-coo-cooing.
I have plenty of wild birds here but as I am in a very rural area I expect
they get feed from other sources like spilled grain, cattle feed etc. As
well as stealing the chicken food, they get the leavings from the parrot
feed pots and other suitable scraps. Not many trees in the fens so I don't
see woodpeckers. I get a wide variety of finches, thrush,
blackbird,robin,wren, doves of all kinds, starlings, sparrows etc.

I too live on th Fens and do get visited by Great Spotted Woodpeckers
from time to time. Last weekend one spent quite a long time tapping at a
wooden electricity pole as if it was a tree and then moved along and sat
on top of another pole simply calling and looking round for some time.
I get through several sacks of mixed bird seed and of sunflower seeds
each year. I haven't counted but I would guess at least six or seven of
each. Peanuts go down much more slowly than seeds here
Janet G

"Janet Galpin" wrote in message
...
I too live on th Fens and do get visited by Great Spotted Woodpeckers
from time to time. Last weekend one spent quite a long time tapping at a
wooden electricity pole as if it was a tree and then moved along and sat
on top of another pole simply calling and looking round for some time.
I get through several sacks of mixed bird seed and of sunflower seeds
each year. I haven't counted but I would guess at least six or seven of
each. Peanuts go down much more slowly than seeds here
We don't have enough trees near my house to sustain woodpeckers :0(
I have never counted how many 25 kilo sacks of mixed corn, wild bird seed,
sunflower seed, pigeon food I go through, nor how much fat I get from the
abbatoir (Gagens) I out food on the bird tables when I go out to feed the
hens first thing and again at 4 pm when I feed the hens again. When I do the
afternoon feed, there is usually still some seed left on the table but I
pile it up so they can fill their crops before roosting, and again when they
wake. I also make sure there are plenty of water containers about.

"ex WGS Hamm" wrote in message
news

"Janet Galpin" wrote in message
...
snip
I get through several sacks of mixed bird seed and of sunflower
seeds
each year. I haven't counted but I would guess at least six or
seven of
each. Peanuts go down much more slowly than seeds here

I have never counted how many 25 kilo sacks of mixed corn, wild
bird seed,
sunflower seed, pigeon food I go through,
snip

I get through 10 25Kg sacks of mixed seed a year plus about 15Kg of
peanuts.
I feed once a day (at dusk, so that there is food there at dawn) from
a 2L plastic drinks bottle dribbling the seed into a 12 inch flower
pot saucer, hanging from a tree.
The tree sparrows, chaffinches and tits lob all the corn and stuff
they don't want over the side for the Collared Doves, Pheasant and
Partridge down below.
'IF' anything is left in the saucer, it is chaff blown and returned to
the bottle for tomorrow.

--
ned

http://www.bugsandweeds.co.uk
last update 15.10.2004

Has anyone noticed more goldfinches in suburban areas in the South East?
This is the first year we have seen them in our garden (SW London) and
they must have nested close by because we also had the fledglings visit
the sunflower feeder.
--

"James" wrote in message ...

People think they are being kind in this sort of way, but 9 times out of ten
they are killing off our feathered friends.
My advice is to use google to find the RSPB site and ask there.
and then let us all know what you found.
another trick is to use logic, but I think sometimes we have a fuzzy logic
installed in our brains as well.

I have a guide to garden birds that I got from the RSPB - it's free to
send of for on their website. It's quite a nice little guide and very
informative on different birds you might see in your garden etc. It
also has advice on what to feed garden birds. In the list of suggested
foods to put out, it includes chopped bacon rind....it also says it's
OK to feed bread so long as it's moistened.

The only thing it outlaws is dessicated coconut as this apparently
swells in a birds stomach.

I'm not saying one thing is right or wrong...just to give a view on
what the RSPB have actually said is OK - at least in one of their
publications...

One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned in this thread is
that if you do put food out for birds, then you should definitely also
ensure that there is a safe place for them to get water too. A shallow
pan or a birdbath...


Annette
www.gardenopoly.co.uk