Bunches of Birds for Your Bucks

Sunflower Chips, black oil sunflower seed without the hulls, is a great food to offer if you'd like to attract oodles of birds to your feeder while being lazy about sweeping hulls.

Photo is an Evening Grosbeak dining on Value Sunflower Chips

by Molly Evans

I’m a lazy gardener.  I don’t really want to sweep up seed shells from underneath our black oil sunflower seed feeders.  But that seed is by far the most popular that we offer, so for years I regularly swept a good many hulls left behind by our backyard diners.

That was then.  Now I fill some of my feeders with Sunflower Chips, sunflower seeds without the hull.  There is less mess to sweep from underneath those feeders, and sunflower chips attract a wide variety of seed-eating birds!  Hulled sunflower chips are very nutritious, and their high oil content equates to a high energy boost for our bird feeder regulars.  I fill the elevated feeders located near our patio and walkway with the chips, to keep the areas looking neat and tidy. 

In a ground feeder I offer Pacific No Waste, a blend of sunflower chips (black oil sunflower pieces), hulled white proso millet peanut pick-outs and hearts, and cracked corn.  Birds that prefer to feed low to the ground, like Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos, Varied Thrushes, sparrows and others, will find it to contain all their favorite seeds.  I recommend Pacific No Waste as a great no-shell substitute for Northwest Nature Mix, which has something for everybirdy. 

It seems to me that offering sunflower chips and Pacific No Waste is energy and cost efficient.  The hulls, which are not useful, are left behind at the seed plant instead of transported to our shops in the Portland area.  I like to think that when I buy these products, I’m paying only for bird food, not for shells that will not be eaten.