I have several types of food I like to buy that I feel like give me consistent results with the birds. With suet cakes, I don’t really have a preferred brand but I do always get the varieties that are marketed toward woodpeckers. As far as seed goes, I have very specific bags I like to get. The first is a fruit and nut mix from the brand Wild Delight. They have a ton of great seed blends and this one has been really great in my tray feeder For woodpeckers, blue jays, nuthatch, and more. The second seed I buy is a finch mix from the brand Valley Splendor. I seem to get a lot of birds that really enjoy this seed, so I’m going to switch up where I offer it and see what the birds think. I currently mix it in with the fruit and nut blend in my hanging tray but I want to try putting it in a feeder on the ground. The third seed I like to get is anything that’s sort of on the cheaper side. Any sort of basic bird blend that doesn’t bother me if it spills on the ground. I’ll usually put this in the hopper feeder, since the squirrels like to dump it and the sparrows and finches like to fling it around.
For the cylinder feeder, I’m not usually too picky on what I get for it, and there isn’t always a lot of variety but there is a few I usually go back to whenever I need to refill it. The seed on this feeder tend to last a decent amount of time, so while it can be a little more expensive to get the feed for this, that kind of makes up for the cost.
I have a few other things I like to buy and sort of consider them the “treats”. Kaytee has a nice sized bag at a pretty cheap price for dried mealworms. While they are disgusting, the birds absolutely devour them. I also like to buy bags of suet nuggets. I sprinkle these in my hanging tray and they are a big hit with Blue Jays and Woodpeckers. Lastly I almost always have a bag of peanuts to throw in the tray as well for the Blue Jays. They love peanuts with the shell on and most days I put them out they’re gone in a few hours.
I do want to mention, that if you have trouble with squirrels eating your bird food, which I do with the hopper, I haven’t had much luck with using squirrel proof bird feeds. The seed is coated with a spicy flavoring that squirrels aren’t supposed to like, but it doesn’t seem to deter any of the ones in my area. So for me, that would be a buy at your own risk sort of thing. There are spicy suets as well, but I don’ t have any that the squirrels can’t get to so I can’t comment on whether or not they work better than the seed as a deterrent.
