I have fed my chickens flax seeds for a couple of years now. I never had the eggs tested, but I would be very curious to do so, just to see what the Omega-3 content is. I mostly supplement during winter months, because they do a lot of free ranging when the weather is warm and from what I have read, free ranging greatly increases the Omega-3 content as well. The only problem I've had is that they don't really love the stuff. They'll eat it if I throw some on the ground for them, but when I tried mixing it in with their feed, they picked out the feed and all the flax was left in a pile at the bottom of the feeder. I guess they like it OK as a snack, but there are other snacks they like better, such as commercial bird seed. I've also been curious about that - how does the sunflower seeds, millet, etc in bird seed affect the fat content of the eggs? -Diggity

I have also let birdseed sprout. I've gotten sunflowers, millet and some kind of wild mustard that was really pretty, covered with clear yellow flowers that the butterflies liked. In fact, I collected seed from that to plant deliberately in a butterfly garden. I really liked it. I don't think you have any health problems to worry about, and as Gary says, it is probably even more nutritional if the birds eat it. If you don't mind how it looks and don't want to pull it, I say leave it. Sometimes if it gets out of hand, we just mow it down and that takes care of that. Marcia

I used to have bird feeders, but not since we have had an active population of black bears. While I like having them around, I don't want to train them to think that our house = food. Although the bears hibernate, they are awake before there are many food sources for seed eaters, and I hate to habituate the birds to my feeders and then have to remove them in early spring. I do want to put out a heated bird bath for winter, though, and may try a suet feeder since about the time I would have to bring in the feeder due to the bears waking up, there would be insects available for the suet eaters. We do have a lot of birds, but they don't spend as much time near the house as they would if we had feeders. I do plant for the birds and often have nests in shrubs near the house, seed eating birds on plants where I've let the seed heads stand, and insect eaters in the shrubbery. Purple martins eat flying bugs, so that is one of the reasons folks put up houses for them. Since you plan to put up bird houses, read up about the requirements for a house that the birds will use, the preferred size openings for different birds, and how best to site them since different types of birds look for different set-ups. Here's some general information on bird houses from the National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/How-to-Help/Garden-for-Wildlife/Gardening-Tips/Attracting-Nesting-Birds.aspx The link below is from Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Project Nest Watch. If you go to the LEARN tab in the upper right part of the page, there are various articles about bird houses and landscaping for bird habitat that you may find useful. Until you have more shrubs or small trees near your feeders for landing spots, you can put a lage tree branch or old Christmas tree in a pot and fill the pot with rocks or gravel to hold it in place. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell's Project Nest Watch

For the 1st time this year I've had a pair of doves feeding beneath the hanging feeders. We've always had a couple of feeders but this year we've put out some more and have had flocks of birds and several squirrels. We're having to fill the feeders at least once a day and sometimes twice. Jerry has been putting cracked corn that he buys for the deer on the ground under the feeders and sprinkling seed around too so that's probably why the doves have appeared. Thanks for the thrumbs up on when to put up the hummingbird feeders. Nancy