No Clean Bird Feeder System

Anyone who feeds birds does so because watching a little birdie eat a free meal provides a momentary escape from an otherwise busy day. THAT SAME PERSON will tell you that scrubbing bird crap off of a feeder is the low-point of the hobby. Seriously, nobody enjoys cleaning bird poop off of a bird feeder.

Birders in-the-know are aware that (and I’m cringing as I write this) “bird feeder hygiene” is actually a thing. Todd Underwood of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania  gave a presentation to the super-secret “Wild Bird Feeding Industry Association” back in 2016. SPOILER ALERT: dirty bird feeders hurt and sometimes kill birds. Basically, after three weeks your bird feeder starts to become a microbial cesspool.

If you feel convicted right now because you know darn well that it’s been WAY more than three weeks since you cleaned your bird feeder, don’t be too hard on yourself. Even if you had cleaned it, you probably wouldn’t have cleaned it properly. Pretty much nobody cleans their feeders often enough (or properly). The  presentation explains the proper way to clean a feeder:
clean the bird feeder with a mild soap detergent and water. AND THEN, soak the bird feeder in a 10% bleach solution for 10 minutes.

Well gee, that’s convenient! NOT!!! Seriously that is anything but easy. Why not just thrown on your hazmat suit while you’re at it?! If you are a working person, a parent , or frankly, if you are just someone who has a decent chore-list to get through on any given weekend, are you really going to do all of that to clean a bird feeder? No. No you won’t. No, I don’t. And most other people don’t either.

The failure here isn’t on you (the person feeding birds). The failure is on the bird feeding industry. They have spent, oh, the past 100 years or so, selling you the same old feeders that push all of the maintenance work onto you, the customer. Why, you ask? Great question! Because bird feeder companies are, historically, lazy- they don’t innovate. Then, Mr. Canary Company happened!

We’ve created an actual bird feeding system that uses TV-dinners for birds to create a no-clean bird feeder. You’re welcome!