04/30/2023
Warning: small rant in defense of small birds that need big help from humans 💚🫵🏼
Most of you know me as a wellness veterinarian 👩⚕️, but I am also a wildlife biologist 👩🏻🌾 and licensed wildlife rehabilitator 🦅. This is one of my patients, who is sick because humans fed him cloudy, polluted nectar teeming with bacteria that eventually killed him 🧫😰.
I feel the same way about wildlife as I do domestic pets: it’s our responsibility to know enough to do no harm. When it comes to feeding wildlife, either do it right, or don’t do it at all. If you decide to feed hummingbirds, please do it correctly and responsibly, or you will kill them (and life is hard enough for our wild friends).
1. Do NOT use artificially colored store- bought hummingbird food 🛑❌. Commercial nectars have way too many preservatives, additives, chemical stabilizers and Red Dye #5 that’s harmful to their bodies 👎🏼.
Make your own nectar instead:
1 cup plain sugar + 4 cups boiling water (filter out the impurities)
(1:4 ratio means you can make smaller batches, like 1/4 cup sugar + 1 cup boiling water, if desired). Stir until sugar dissolves and let cool. Store in refrigerator and use up within a week.
❌ I love raw honey, but DON’T USE HONEY with hummingbirds 🍯👎🏼 (sugar is 50% fructose/50% glucose, honey is 40% fructose/30% glucose + other constituents, so it’s the wrong food matrix for them)
❌ I eat organic cane sugar, but DON’T USE ORGANIC SUGAR with hummingbirds👎🏼, it contains more minerals (like iron) that can bioaccumulate over time
2. Warm sugar water can quickly incubate incredible levels of pathogenic bacteria 🦠 and fungi that can infect and kill birds quickly 📈⚰️.The warmer the weather, the faster pathogenic microbes accumulate in nectar ☠️
Thoroughly disinfect and refill your hummingbird feeder twice a week in the spring. Above 85 degrees, clean and refill daily. (Yes, I said daily 😅) 🫗🧴🚰🧽🪣
Is this a complete pain? Yes. It’s also lifesaving and crucial, if you choose to feed hummingbirds. I spend 15 minutes a day taking care of my hummingbird feeders because I want the birds in my yard to not leave diseased and ill 🕊️.
I want to be a responsible steward of the wildlife in my yard. Please do the same, or simply enjoy them without feeding them. Plant hummingbird-friendly flowers 🌸. Better to keep them safe than inadvertently give them fatal food poisoning 💔.
