Since this is for the cold spell only, I am not worried about raccoons or the possums eating a thing. They are here all the time. We have not had these temps since the 1980's. We have an additional 5 inches of snow on top of the previous 6 inches that had not melted from Christmas in addition to the weather service prediction of -12 to -16F for the next several mornings. The only tracks of our normal wildlife that I have seen is one deer so I believe the possums and coons have denned up until it is warmer in a couple of weeks. Bears we don't have. Cougars are welcome to anything that is out there. Have not heard any coyotes so if just passing through so be it. My dog is not out without a keeper.

Please reread what I posted and give a sensible answer not a native bird only answer. Most of the birds currently here are not native birds and I feed all things irrespective of their race or creed.

I don't see any harm in using the dog & cat food. You may want to crush some of the dry food, or put it in a blender, before placing it outside. That'll make it easier for smaller birds to eat.
It's not uncommon for rehabilitators to feed orphaned wild birds canned or dry (soaked) food as a substitute.

I've also cut up apples, oranges and pears and put out for the ground birds. It freezes but they still pick at it!

Thanks, since the dog is a cav it is small bits. I also am putting out raisins and will put out one of the summer squash I had saved for later in the winter. Many of my birds like the over large zucc's and other summer squashes when broke in pieces. It has not been this cold or snowy here for almost twenty years. There will be a fairly large loss of animal and bird population because of the weather.

Those animals that are lucky enough to find your home will be very fortunate!
Zucc's are a great idea! Totally forgot that I used to feed them to my canaries & finches!

You intentions are nice, but Rachel is spot on.

Anyway, no birds need dog food. Crows would like it, but they don't need "help."

So no. They have weathered bad winters for millions of years.

If you encourage raccoons, squirrels and other mammals, in the summer there will be more of them to eat the eggs of the birds you are now trying to save.

Often I crush up a mix of nuts, corn chips, bread crumbs, sunflower seeds, etc. and sprinkle this on the ground for the ground-feeding birds. If I had extra dried pet food, I would probably add a bit of that too. On occasion I have added crushed leftover dried cat food to the suet mixture. However, in the winter, I was thinking that the birds might need calories (sugar and fat) more than they need protein? Considering how much energy they need to stay warm and that their high protein food sources, like insects, are not normally available during the winter.

I feed modest amounts of food to the birds each day, so that they eat pretty much all of what's out there by the end of the day. I figure the food out there is supplemental - enough so that they aren't going to starve to death during the winter. During the summer, I feed the birds very little and focus on providing natural sources of food (don't want to attract House Sparrows to the yard).

IMO if people feed so much food to the birds that other animals are raiding the feeders then 1) they are feeding too much and 2) the feeders are not properly installed and baffled.

Today I smeared chunky peanut butter into the rough bark of backyard pine trees. Also had previously laid my discarded (live) Christmas tree right under one of my shepherd's hooks (where 2 of my feeders are) and spread peanut butter on the trunk. By the way, the birds gather around and go inside the Christmas tree. You can also make suet which provides the fat. You can mix cornmeal in and you could, IMO, mix in crushed dog or cat food. Black sunflower seed and I also use safflower seed, has oil which is fat. Good in winter. Expensive too.
Laurie in north Mississippi - 12 degrees this morning

i guess here on the farm we are doing it all wrong. When I retired last June the family designated a 6 acre plot for my personal retirement hobby garden plot.

In the mean time I decided to take up nature photography as my retirement hobby so instead of planting a fancy garden I decided to try an experiment. I went to the farm and got the tractor and the corn planter and I planted 1/2 of that field in yellow dent corn with a hearty amount of pumpkin seeds in the seed hoppers as well(about 40 rows over 200ft long.) I then planted 16 rows of sunflowers and for the remaining portion I broadcast seeded it with thistle seed and wild bird seed. I did not plww or till that field but rather all of that was planted right in amongst the existing weeds. Once the planting was complete I just sat back and let it grow how it would, and when the stalks all dried and drooped last fall I just left it all as it was in the natural state.

i then went back to the farm and got an old chicken feeding hopper, which I placed at the far end of the field by the woods and I fill it every few days with chicken feed, oats, spelts and sometimes just the loose grain that we sweep up in the grainary and on occasion i throw in some of the sweetfeed they get for the horses.

In the yard I have 4 hopper type feeders which I fill at least once a day and sometimes twice or even three times a day so I can sit in my bedroom and shoot pictures of the birds on the feeders.

Some of my family have said that i am as crazy as an outhouse rat, but on the other hand, just last evening I counted 25 cardinals in the maple tree that supports my main feeder, not to mention how many bluejays, doves, chickdee, sparrows and woodpeckers that frequent it. On average i am using 5 40lb bags of wild birdseed a month, but when i consider how much enjoyment i get out of this project I think it is very cheap entertainment, not to mention I shoot an average of 500 photos a day.

In addition to all the songbirds in the yard there is a flock of about 25 wild turkeys that frequent my cornfield or the chicken feeder, not to mention 15 or 20 deer, some ruffled grouse and a dozen or so ringneck pheasant and yes, i get the occasional raccoon, but as a rule they are nocturnal so we don't see them much. Now I have no doubt that there are probably a few field mice out there too, but then the owls and hawks gotta eat too.

Many people chastise the lowly sparrow for robbing all the seed from the feeders but if the truth was told, sparrows only eat at the feeder. On the other hand, Nuthatches, Chicdees and the titmouse are hoarders, They will fly to the feeder repeatedly to grab seeds which they tuck in cracks and crevices of tree bark to insure they have a handy meal in bad weather.

As was previously mentioned, we can go crazy trying to appease the birds with special diets but in the end it is at best just a bribe to get them to come closer for viewing, if left to their own devices they will still find plenty to eat.

If I have learned nothing else in my lifetime of living in the country I have learned that birds and wild animals are opportunists. They each have some specific food they prefer to eat but when necessity proves the rule they will eat anything they can find, which is evidenced by birds following a horse all day hoping for a hot meal to fall.

Actually, while other may not agree with me, the original poster's request has some merit. We feed bird for our enjoyment and not actually to benefit them. There's some debates on whether this improves birds survival or not.

Some will debate that feeding birds harms them because it makes them concentrate in one area, exposing them to disease and predation by cats and hawks. While others indicate that feeding will benefit them. I don't see too many studies in this area.

There is a study on Chickadee that indicates their chance of survival in the winter, but has no benefit for them in the summer. This is because Chickadee only eat 20% of their food from the feeder. When snow covers the ground, food becomes harder to find. Bird do need more food in the winter. Feeding them good food may increase their survival.

When temperature drop, more birds will die and this is part of nature. I guess it depends whether you want to affect this by feeding them food and help them survive.

The choice of cat food may not be such a great idea. I think only large birds like cat food. What kind of birds are you trying to help?

Paul

I am out of black sunflower seeds. We are having very cold weather also with snow covering the ground for longer than usual. I have some alfalfa pellets. Do you think that would hurt the birds?

Trying to help resident mocking bird, several types of sparrows, cardinals, plus any other creature that comes to my yard. The original snow was a mix of ice and snow which has covered most of the food choices. Because of the rain we had earlier many of the seed bearing plants did not produce seed so most of the birds that stay here left. These are the stragglers. Since where I live has wooded corridors we have all kinds of wildlife. It is not a question of attracting them, they live here.

It sounds from the comments that the posters here apparently feel that birds have no benefit other than to be watched. Having planted things over the years to increase the number of birds and other animals to help keep my garden and yard free of insects it appears that I should not have planted anything that would help insure that creatures other than humans could have something to live on. I am now sorry I wasted my time asking about what might help for a limited situation.

I am trying to keep my birds alive through this weather so not every one feels that way. Someone on TV thought Bill Gates was wrong to get children in the third world vaccinated because then there would be too many people and not enough food. I may be wrong but I don't agree. I have an electric blanket on for my dog and the cats in the barn have light bulbs all foolish and I don't care.

The original poster said "Having planted things over the years to increase the number of birds and other animals to help keep my garden and yard free of insects..."

I mostly agree with this, except that I would qualify the statement about keeping the area free of insects. I encourage grackles and other birds because they eat caterpillars that defoliate trees. At this time the Winter Moths and other defoliators are way out of balance in Massachusetts, and any bird that eats them is welcome. On the other hand, I also plant bronze fennel and other plants that attract beneficial insects that will pollinate the indigenous plants and/or kill unwelcome insects. Anything that might kill red lily leaf beetles or white grubs is also welcome.

I greatly enjoy watching the birds and other wildlife, but my main concern is establishing a healthy ecosystem around me.

Claire

I also hate to see anything suffer and/or die, particularly if I can prevent it.

Claire

People who want to keep their birds alive don't spray poison in their yards. They want to preserve the environment. I have been tempted to spray my yard for ticks, but I can't because of the toad I talk baby talk to. Conservation people are concerned with populations not the individual cute titmouse. But people sympathetic to the plight of the animals support projects that benefit the environment and vote that way. Ecosystems change. People clear land and build and pave, common sense tells me that people who provide help for birds in their yards help to mitigate the loss of habitat.

I sympathize with what you want to do, maifleur; I also think of the birds in my backyard when the weather is about to become extreme (especially recently with the extreme cold). I make sure my feeders are filled if I can, not because I like to watch the birds but because I have been watching them all year and as a result now feel like they are part of our lives here, part of the tiny undeveloped plot we live on. I feel protective of them even if I know that they can take care of themselves 98% of the time.

The cold that areas are experiencing is tough though, and I would think that dried cat/dog food would be okay for the birds, especially if they have none of their natural food sources. I'd give it a try. The poster who suggested breaking it up into small pieces had a good idea.

Stay warm! :)

maifleur,

I did not mean to be offensive. I made that statement because most people put up just a feeder, which really doesn't make that much of an impact. You are doing more than the usual. Planting a habitat does change things.

May I suggest putting out some water, When the temperature drops enough, bird will have difficulty finding liquid water. If there's snow, they can eat that, but that will need to expend calories to heat the water. You may be able to jury rig a metal pan with a spot light underneath or just buy a heated bird bath or keep replenishing the water.

I often wonder sometimes about roosting boxes filled with straw where the birds can hide out from the element for the night.

paul,

I did put up a winter roosting box this fall, with dried grass lining the bottom.

I have no idea yet whether anybody's been in it. I will keep you posted.

I also lined with grass the few nestboxes I have in the yard. Another poster on this forum said that her downy woodpeckers like to use them in the winter.

Going back to the question asked in the original post, I put out some leftover dry cat food this morning. I sprinkled it in a groundfeeding area that still had mixed seed in it. The dry cat food was grabbed up by Blue Jays and squirrels.

I'm not expecting any harm being done; in fact I wonder if this will prevent the jays and squirrels from getting hairballs (my old, now deceased cat used to eat hairball prevention food).

Claire

This thread reminds me of a story I read in one of the bird books where this family gotten to a point where they identify who comes to the feeder and their habit. One of their regulars were a group of pheasants. One day there was a big ice storm and the owner hasn't seen the pheasant, so he went out to where the pheasants usually rest and notice it was covered in ice. He kicked a hole in the ice and shortly afterwards the pheasant arrived at his feeder. It's possible that he may have save the pheasants' life.

Paul