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Birder’s $4 Solution Not Only Prevented Seed Debris but Also Squirrel Problems Around The Feeder

This item will not only protect your bird feeder from sloppy eating birds, but will also prevent pestering squirrels from pouncing upon it.

BY NEHA B.

PUBLISHED 8 HOURS AGO

Birder shared a clever flower pot tray hack she used to prevent her bird feeder from getting messy (Cover Image Source: Facebook | @backyardbirdlovers)

Both humans and birds begin their lives as indiscriminate eaters. But as they grow up, humans develop dining etiquette, while birds remain the same throughout their lives, unless trained by a wildlife coach. Both adult and juvenile birds tend to spill mess on the feeders, often landing the birdkeeper in higgledy-piggledy trouble. Posting in the Facebook group Backyard Bird Lovers (@backyardbirdlovers), a birder named Juli Bates shared how she used a clever trick to tidy up the droppings and shells from her feeder after the guests leave.

Close-up of male and female House Sparrows on a bird feeder in bright morning sunlight. (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | AlPhotographic)

Birds are messy eaters

Red-breasted Nuthatch Flying From Bird Feeder In Oregon (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | GarysFRP)

Take, as an example, the purple finches, or rose-breasted grosbeaks, per Birds & Blooms. With their thick conical bills, they swoop at the feeder and crack open the sunflower hearts, nuts, and seeds with pointed beaks and tongues. After nimbly cracking the shell open and swallowing the seeds, they poop down the waste material and flutter away, leaving the birdkeeper agitated with the mess accumulated under the feeder.

The flower pot tray hack

Bates shared that the accumulated seed debris was “wreaking havoc” on the ground beneath her bird feeder. A picture she shared of her tube-style feeder showed powdery smatterings of seeds accumulated untidily at the base. To deal with the mess, she bought a flower pot tray and drilled about 20 holes in it. Using a rivet gun, she attached this cut-up tray to the feeder.

Image Source: Facebook | Mary-Louise Shimkus

Image Source: Facebook | Darlene B. Hebert McCarthy

“Problem solved! Now I just empty the tray whenever the feeder is empty, and those squirrels don't stand a chance,” she exclaimed in the post. The entire hack, she said, cost her only four dollars. A second picture she shared in the post depicted the same feeder dangling from a pole, but this time with a flower pot tray attached to its bottom.

Use sunflower chips instead of seeds

Bird feeder filled with sunflower chips (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Ulrike Neone)

Dozens of birders jumped into the comments section to share similar episodes of trying out bizarre hacks to get rid of their messy bird feeders. While this “flower pot tray” hack wouldn’t work for their feeder, there's another trick to clean up the birdie’s muddle, shared Sue Pare Palmer. “If I put a tray like you did, I know the stupid squirrels would just flip it and everything would go flying,” Palmer pointed out. One suggestion their story revealed is to put “sunflower chips” in place of “sunflower seeds” for the birds. Since chips don’t have shells, unlike seeds, it would prevent the feathered creatures from spilling them.

Sprinkle sawdust

Woman putting something in a bird feeder (Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Yuliia Bilousova)

But even chips don’t entirely prevent the mess that bird guests might rumple at the feeder. “It’s almost impossible to rake up, so I’ve resorted to putting down sawdust just so I don’t break my neck slipping on that god awful mess. I plan on raking that up now and then and throwing that out,” explained Palmer.

Use a wreath frame

Birder demonstrates how she used wreath frame to prevent sloppy-eating bird guests from creating mess at her feeder (Image Source: Facebook | Patti Moon)

Another suggestion came from Patti Moon. Moon shared that she bought “a round grease splatter screen” and “a bigger round wire wreath frame.” She attached the flower wire to the outer wreath ring and put both under the feeder, thereafter hanging with four flower pot chains connected directly to the wreath ring. “It has Finch's food in the tube, which helps collect any droppings & the squirrels aren't crazy about trying to get that from the metal tube,” Moon explained.

Create a rock garden

Bird perched upside down on a feeder filled with seeds (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Miro Vrlik)

Gayle Hackwork said they use a “rock garden” to sweep away the messy bird droppings. “I have a rock garden. I use a very fine mesh screen under my feeder. A few rocks to hold it down and then sweep when needed,” they wrote in a comment.

Additional tricks

Image Source: Facebook | Susan M Chowaniac

Yvonne Rollason said they use a “hanging basket” under the feeder to collect the dropped food and poop. Liz Casells suggested putting “non-sprouting seeds” in the feeder, and Thomas Dixon recommended using “a leaf blower” to scatter the hulls and then collect them for trash.

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