By no means is this post sponsored by Haith’s – Bird Food Specialists since 1937. However, after previously testing their wild bird food, (you can read all about that here). I decided to purchase some of their foods for our indoor aviary, which houses seven finches, with two in the ‘naughty’ cage! Overall we have a mix of nine foreign finches.
We regularly offer millet sprays to our birds. We usually buy Chinese millet from a local pet store. On perusing Haith’s Cage and Aviary website, I spied French red Anjou millet sprays. Though a little more expensive than the Chinese millet I was won over by their deep red colour.
Foreign Finches enjoying Anjou Millet
French red Anjou Millet Spray
Haith’s delivery is supper fast. On receipt of my goods, I couldn’t wait to give the finches their first taste of the red Anjou millet. Needless to say the new millet went down a treat!
With two of our ladies laying eggs at present (in rather unsuitable places I may add), I purchased Haith’s foreign finch tonic food. This blend is to support staple foods and is enriched with nutritious seeds to help with a balanced diet. Like their wild bird seed, the foreign finch food came SUPERCLEAN™. You can read more about Haith’s cleaning process here.
Foreign Finch Tonic Seed
Granulated Charcoal
To help with digestion and aid in egg production I also purchased some granulated charcoal.
We are very happy with the purchased products from Haith’s. The birds are loving the new tonic seed and red Anjou millet. I will definitely purchase these items again from Haith’s in future.
* This post comes courtesy of Haith’s – Bird Food Specialists since 1937. If you want top quality bird seed and feeders from a British family run business, then Haith’s has all the products your garden birds need!*
So, you’ve decided to start feeding the birds visiting your outdoor space, (be it a garden, yard or balcony), and that’s a good thing. But there’s so many different types of bird food that you don’t know where to begin!
There’s seed for finches, soft food for robins, peanuts for tits and suet for starlings! The choice can make your head spin!
But did you also know there’s different qualities of food too? There’s the cheap supermarket bought versions which are full of dust and germinate once fallen on soil.
Then there’s SUPERCLEAN™!
Haith’s kindly offered me some of their Premium Wild Bird Food to sample. Or more importantly my visiting garden birds to sample! They sent me a bag of SUPERCLEAN™ seedand another bag of uncleaned seed. You can tell the difference straight away from the pictures taken by David below. The uncleaned seed had pieces of wood, dust and seed husks whereas the SUPERCLEAN™ looked polished and wholesome. Which seed would you prefer too feed your birds?
SUPERCLEAN™
Uncleaned Seed
Why do Haith’s SUPERCLEAN™ their foods?
The reason Haith’s SUPERCLEAN™ their seed is due to studies by Professor John E Cooper DTVM FRCPath FSB CIBiol FRCVS, who found that birds who ate abrasive materials easily damaged their respiratory tracts. This damage in turn leads to increased vulnerability to illness and disease.
Haith’s kindly asked me to help spread their message about SUPERCLEAN™ and the importance of feeding good quality seed to wild birds. The below info-gram is helpful in explaining their process.
And if all that isn’t enough they have birder and conservationist extraordinaire Bill Oddie explaining the process.
And how did the SUPERCLEAN™ seed fare? On a freezing winter’s day, with snow forecast, the wild birds needed all the high energy seed they could get. I filmed many goldfinches on the feeders and a very cheeky pigeon helping himself to the seed on offer from the Multifeeder!!
If you would like to see the variety of bird foods from Haith’s follow this link: https://www.haiths.com
* This post comes courtesy of Haith’s – Bird Food Specialists since 1937. If you want top quality bird seed and feeders from a British family run business, then Haith’s has all the products your garden birds need!*
Recently I was approached by Haith’s to review some of their products. I have to admit I was secretly flattered that my opinion mattered, so I agreed. Within a few days three products arrived via post neatly packaged, there was much detail to keeping the products safe in transit.
The products to be reviewed were:
MultiFeeder Plus:a feeder which holds not only seed but water and two fatballs, ideal for attracting different species of wild bird or for hungry birds during the winter.
Fat balls (small):I was kindly gifted six of these suet balls to trial, which come helpfully with no nets.
I was eager to fill the feeder up and see how my numerous garden visitors would receive the need addition.
The multifeeder needed to be constructed. The instructions included were easy to follow, even I could follow them! Indeed I managed to fit the parts together without asking David (the product expert) for help! There is a domed cover to keep the larger birds at bay and to keep the rain from ruining the seed. The inner well can be used for water or other types of seed or mealworms. The two fat ball holders have sharp spikes in which to pierce the suet to the feeder.
The fat balls came all individually wrapped in cardboard packaging, to prevent them from crumbling, and the wild bird food, filled with high-energy sunflower seeds and wholegrain cereal, is packaged in a sealed brown paper bag.
Haith’s bird food comes SuperCLEAN™, which means in production they eliminate dust and husks which can damage birds respiratory tracts.
Once the multifeeder was filled with water, wild bird food and fat balls, it was time to hang the feeder outside and see what the visiting garden birds thought of the fare on offer.
Hanging the new bird feeder
Fledged starling on new feeder
What the birds thought of the multifeeder:
It took a while for the birds to take to the new feeder. They were scared of the dome. Though we had one intrepid fledgling starling enjoying the fat balls and seed.
Over the coming weeks, the dome started to attract other birds. Like a blue tit and fledged goldfinches!
At this time of year, end of summer/beginning of Autumn my garden is awash with bird families after a busy year of breeding. Fledgling starlings still with their baby feathers are hungrily looking for food, and suet fat balls are their favourite foods. Goldfinch young with their brown heads are all vying for sunflower hearts, whilst house sparrow families look for smaller seeds and cereals.
I didn’t care much for the detachable fat ball holders, as once the fat ball had been pecked and became crumbly, then the fat ball easily fell off and was lost to the voracious beaks of pigeons. The six fat balls were soon devoured this way, they only lasted a week in my garden!
Being made of plastic, I was a little worried for the durability of the multifeeder. However we discovered that it was more robust than we gave it credit for as it survived a fall of 1.5m without shattering. We have very raucous starlings who don’t have much in the way of table manners!
The two trays for different types of food or water is a good feature. Come winter you could feed suet pellets in the small dish while still offering normal seed or sunflower hearts in the other. There are many variants yet to be tried.
Overall, the multifeeder is a good addition to any feeding station. The starlings loved it, and I liked how robust it was. I will monitor how many birds take to the multifeeder during wintertime and do a short follow-up review. I can see many tit species enjoying the differing feed on offer and we have yet to see a robin this year.
I thank Haith’s for this opportunity to sample their products.
Links:
If you are interested in purchasing any of the products included in this review then follow the links to the individual pages.
Haith’s website offers more bird foods, such as peanuts, niger and livefood. If you would like to see their entire range follow: https://www.haiths.com/bird-food/
To hold all these different types of food, there is a designated page for all of Haith’s feeders, including feeding stations, window feeders and tables, follow this link to see their range: https://www.haiths.com/bird-feeders/
The products to be reviewed were: 
Christine Lucas 