What is the best hummingbird food recipe?
Question:I heard that it isn't good for hummingbirds to be just fed a 4:1 water sugar food. I heard that it is hard for them to digest all that sugar and that they should be getting other nutrients, too. I don't want to buy a food mix but would like a recipe for a better hummingbird food if that is what is best for them.
I have tried to search this out and keep getting the same recipes over and over of a ratio of 4:1, water to sugar.
Does anybody really know what is best for them?
Answers:
You've gotten a lot of good answers about the sugar/water mix, but I thought that I'd add that I have several pots of nasturtiums near my hummingbird feeder, and the nasturtiums get visited just about as often as the feeder does! Nasturtiums are super easy to grow from seed (you pretty much just poke them into the dirt, water, and watch!) and will generally self-seed, meaning you won't have to plant them again next year. And they're edible! Amazing things. Anyway, good luck!
I use 3:1 myself. Don't know what is really best for them.
Humming birds get all their energy from pollen. Pure sugar mixed with 4 parts water is how I have fed them for years.
The best would be to have growing plants that provide the nectar, bugs (slurping aphids) and other stuff hummingbirds eat. Do research on what plants grow in your area that hummers would feed upon. Use the sugar water feeders as a supplement.
Wild Birds Unlimited where I bought my feeder gave me a recipe for 1/4 cup sugar to one cup BOILED water. It's important to boil the water to help break down the sugar. My birds come back each year and fight over the feeder.
Natural food such as a good honeysuckle plant, or any vine or flower plant that produces nectar like the honeysuckle.
Plant a few of these plants anywhere in your yard, and chances are you'll have the hummers around in great numbers.
Buy a good commercial feeder for when the vines are not producing, that will keep them a round in between flower outputs.
Try different color honeysuckle's as the bloom at different intervals.
4 to 1 water to sugar. no need to add food color, not good for the hummers
Yes the 4:1 ratio of water to sugar is the best, boiling the water first, and mixing sugar while water is still hot. Store in a clean gass jar in the fridge. What you don't want to use is the red dye, which is hard for the humming birds. Instead, use a brightly colored feeder to attract those little "jewels of the sky" The hummingbirds use sugar water, nectar, and sap from certian trees as an energy source, because they have such a high matobolism and exert extreme amounts of energy. What most people don't know is that hummingbirds also eat small flying insects, which is where they get thier nutrients, protien, vitamins, ect. (I have gone as far as putting rotting fruit outside to watch the humingbirds eat the gnats flying around the fruit) Next time you are watching the humming birds in your yard, you may see them flying in a group of gnats, catching them with skinny beaks, with no effort. Binoculars will aid you in watching this neat behavior.
4:1 in is fine. Hummingbirds don't get all of their nutrition from flowers/bird feeders. They also eat small insects.
If you have a heavily-used humming bird feeder, look under it and you'll see lots of tiny bug-bodies that have been excreted by the hummers.
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