Bird Feeder Maintenance: How to Look After Your Feeding Station

Look after your feeding station by cleaning regularly and refilling it daily. Read on for more useful bird feeder maintenance tips!

What’s a Bird Feeding Station?

A bird feeding station is a device that lets you hang multiple bird feeders in one place. Most bird feeding stations look a bit like a coat rack, with many arms for hanging feeders, though some feeding stations can also support feeding trays at the same time. You can build your own with a sturdy pole or buy ready-made bird feeding stations for your garden.

Whether you’ve got a full feeding station with a plethora of feeders, or just a single feeder on a branch, proper cleaning and maintenance is crucial.

Why Is It Important to Properly Maintain a Bird Feeder/Feeding Station?

Bird feeders and feeding stations are great for helping local bird populations to thrive. Unfortunately, a poorly maintained feeder can have the opposite effect.

Birds can die from eating contaminated bird seed if a feeder has not been properly maintained. Diseases like Salmonellosis can be a big problem for birds, so follow the below steps to help prevent the spread of avian illnesses.

How to Maintain a Bird Feeding Station

Maintaining a bird feeder or feeding station doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does take some time. Pay attention to these tips and you should have no trouble bringing birds to your garden!

Step 1 – Check for Damage

Most bird feeders are built to be sturdy, but damage can still occur. If your bird feeders have recently fallen or you have had a spell of bad weather, you should make sure that they aren’t damaged. Bacteria may grow in any cracks and jagged edges could be harmful for birds. If any of your feeders are damaged you may want to think about getting a replacement.

Step 2 – Remove Old Bird Food

Old bird food can go stale or mouldy, which can lead to illness. If birds aren’t emptying your feeder themselves then you should throw away the old seed at the bottom of the feeder regularly, before it becomes a problem.

Step 3 – Clean Your Feeder and Feeding Station

Both hanging feeders and feeding trays require regular cleaning to remove any droppings, mould, or bacteria that may have built up over time.

When cleaning a bird feeder or feeding station, you should not use any cleaning supplies that you use for your home or dishes. Use new gloves and bird-safe disinfectant. For hanging feeders, there are specialised brushes that can reach inside of the tube. For feeding trays, you may need a scraping tool to clear away any mess.

Learn more: How (and How Often) to Clean and Disinfect Bird Feeders

Step 4 – Clean Around Your Feeding Station

Unfortunately, birds sometimes discard seeds, and these can build up around feeding stations. Leaving this food on the ground looks messy and can also attract vermin. While your bird feeders are drying, take the time to clean up any discarded bird seed.

One of the benefits of a bird feeding station is that it is mobile, and it is good to move them around every 4 – 6 weeks if your station is on grass. This will allow the grass to be rested and provides a new clean site for the birds to graze on. Patio based feeding stations can also be moved. In both cases, it is easier to sweep if you move your station.

(If you’re fed up of sweeping up wasted bird seed, try our no-mess mixes!)

Step 5 – Refill Your Feeders

Once your feeders have been cleaned, rinsed, and are completely dry, it’s time to refill them with bird food! Use fresh bird food that has been properly stored. We have lots of healthy, nutritious bird food available, including our new Birdie Basics range for bird feeding on a budget. You should hang your feeders back up near plenty of cover.

Easy-Clean Bird Feeders

Bird feeder maintenance is much easier when you use easy-clean bird feeders. These can be easily separated into parts, making it much simpler to maintain and look after your bird feeding station.

Shop Easy-Clean Bird Feeders