Fatty food is particularly important for birds in winter. But why should you feed fat food at all? What fat should it contain? You will also find out whether you should put out fatty food in summer - and more.
Bought or homemade, fatty food is an important source of energy for many garden birds in winter. Fatty food consists - as the name suggests - of a high proportion of pure fat, for example coconut fat, beef tallow or insect fat. In addition, it can also contain seeds, nuts, berries or even whole insects in different proportions. The most classic variant of fatty food is the well-known round fat dumpling, but there are basically no limits to the shape of the fatty food cake. In this information article we would like to answer which ingredients are particularly good, when exactly you should offer fat feed and many other questions.
Fatty food for birds: That's why it's so important
Due to the high fat content, fat feed is particularly important in winter. Because in the cold season, the small songbirds in particular need a lot of energy in order not to freeze to death and to produce heat around the clock. And since there is little natural food to be found in our barren landscape during the winter months, fatty food that is offered in the garden is readily accepted. You might as well use fat food to feed birds on the balcony.
You should pay attention to this when choosing the right fatty food
The product range of fatty foods is diverse and there are big differences in quality. In order to find the right food, a look at the ingredients is the right step: The food should only contain high-quality, nutritious additives, such as sunflower seeds, uns alted broken peanuts or dried berries. Filling materials such as grain husks or grain husks, on the other hand, are unsuitable as they are simply sorted out by the birds and end up in the garden as waste.
And there are also differences in fat: beef tallow or vegetable fat - such asPalm fat or coconut fat - are a good source of energy. However, they are not a natural food source for our native birds and are also not very sustainable to produce. Insect fat, on the other hand, fits much better into the diet of wild birds and, as far as production is concerned, saves a lot of CO2 compared to conventional alternatives. Our Plantura fat balls are therefore made from 100% insect fat and contain only nutrient-rich, natural additives. With these food balls you can offer your garden birds a he althy and sustainable boost of energy during the cold winter months.
What is the best way to offer fat feed for birds?
Once you have found the right feed, there are a few points to consider when spreading it. If possible, the food cakes should be hung up - at a height where they cannot be reached either from below or from above by curious house cats or other predators. A nearby tree or bush also gives the small garden birds the opportunity to quickly get to safety in the event of impending danger.
If you want to sell fat balls without a net, you can find special holders in stores. These can be roofed over, providing protection from moisture and contamination from bird droppings as the birds can only approach the feed from the side. In principle, however, due to its high fat content and compact form, fat feed is less susceptible to moisture and mold growth than conventional litter feed.
Fat food for birds: Even in summer?
Basically, birds also need energy in the summer and therefore also eat fatty food in the warmer half of the year. However, expectant bird parents and young birds have different nutritional requirements during this time than in winter, because proteins are more important than fats for egg production and the development of the young. In addition, the fatty feeds and their large additives, such as whole sunflower seeds or peanut kernels, can cause digestive problems in young birds.
In order to prevent young birds from being fed fatty food by their parents, you should therefore additionally or exclusively offer year-round or summer food suitable for young birds in summer. Our Plantura all-season food, for example, is excellently suited for this purpose, as it contains not only small, beak-sized and protein-rich seeds, but also an extra load of mealworms and feed lime foregg production.
Tip: Here you can find out what else you need to know about feeding birds properly.
Even if young birds have to be treated with care in the first few weeks of their lives and even when feeding, the little feather balls are not always as helpless as it seems at first glance. Find out what to do when you find a baby bird in your garden and when it's better to leave the little ones to fend for themselves in our special article.