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Wild bird seed - is it safe

2345 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  AubieBird
I have a huge bag of black oil sunflower seed which I purchased for my outside wild bird friends. Should I feed it to my indoor birdies (regent parrot, 'tiel, budgies)? Do I need to worry about how it has been processed/treated, etc.?

Thanks for any help you can give me on this.
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Personally speaking, I wouldn't feed it to my birds. Sunflower seeds are high in fat, and while they may be be good for outside birds, who's metabolic rates are higher, our pet birds don't have the luxury of flight and lots of exercise so it's harder for them to burn off the fat.
Also, the wild bird food isn't as clean as the pet bird food.
I suppose you could give them a little as a treat, but use it very sparingly. :thumbsup:

I'd give it to the birds outside (wild ones) if you have any.
I wouldn't give it to the parrots, like Sue said, they're high in fat (if I remember right, the black oils are the worst) and probably either dirty/dusty or dried out, so not really any good for the parrots. One or two as a treat might be ok though
If you were snowed in and had only that they would survive and be happy to have it! The wild ones will love it more!
Thanks to everyone for your replies. Actually, I was thinking about just mixing in a little black oil sunflower seed with their regular seed occasionally for a treat. However, I think to be safe, I will just stick to their regular seed.
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