How Do You Make Hummingbird Food Safely?

Flowers should provide their primary caloric source, along with a few bugs that they pick off of leaves or snatch from midair to fill out their complement of nutrients. You can look up lists of native plants for your garden to help attract and feed hummingbirds, but you can also supplement their caloric needs by feeding hummingbirds with a well placed sugar water feeder. Today, let's talk about how to keep a hummingbird feeder that's both entertaining for you and

good for the birds. Sugar Water feeders are nice gesture for your local hummingbirds. These vessels can help them get through the times of year when there aren't as many flowers around. However, since feeders are a huge draw for these tiny birds, it's extremely important to keep them clean and safe. Hummingbirds eat by lapping up liquid food at lightning speed, using a flexible tongue that's so long that it retracts in a coil that rests in their skull

around their eyes. Hummingbirds are attracted to the color red because they associate red flowers with higher nutrient nectar. That's why many sugar water feeders are made with red plastic pieces, but this isn't a requirement, and red food coloring definitely should not be used in the sugar water. Unfortunately, hummingbird feeders are great places for bacteria and fungi to grow.

Of course, microbial communities are everywhere the sugar water. Hummingbird feeders attract these same kinds of bacteria that you'd find in flowers, in addition to a few more varieties. Most won't cause disease in hummingbirds, but a small fraction of them have been associated with a disease called candidiasis, a fungal infection that's deadly in hummingbirds. It causes their tongue to swell, making it impossible for the bird to eat.

But to prevent the possibility of spreading this disease through your hummingbird feeders. It's necessary to clean your feeders regularly with a non toxic cleaning product like weakened vinegar. Don't do this in your kitchen where human food is prepared. Birds can carry diseases that can make humans sick. Hummingbird feeders should be cleaned every three to five days, or

more frequently in hot summer weather. Most feeders can be completely disassembled so that they can be thoroughly cleaned inside and out. Avoid using any kind of soaper detergent, though, as those can leave a harmful residue. Hummingbird feeders should contain only this homemade hummingbird food recipe, a mixture of four parts of water to one part of her fire white sugar. The sugar water should be boiled and then

cooled before adding it to the feeder. Irregular tapwater, well water, or bottled spring water are all perfectly fine to use. Although hummingbird feeders are completely safe and even helpful for the birds, there are things that you definitely shouldn't do, many of which have been offered as well meaning advice

in the past and since been scientifically disproven. So here are some pointers don't use distilled water to make the food, as it's stripped of natural minerals, and don't use water processed through a water softener, as water softeners can add certain salts and minerals that aren't good for the birds. Don't add red food, coloring, or dyve any kind to your recipe. It's not necessary to attract hummingbirds, and the

chemicals in the dye aren't good for the birds. In fact, don't add anything to the water in your homemade nectar except for that granulated white sugar. So do not add honey, nor brown sugar, nor molasses, nor any sort of artificial sweetener. A When mixed with water, honey and molasses can create a breeding ground for potentially fatal bacteria and mold to grow. Again, the best hummingbird nectar recipe is just one part granulated white sugar mixed with four parts of clean water. Also,

don't spend your money on commercial hummingbird nectars. Many of these concoctions contain preservatives, additives, and dyes that can harm the birds. Using your own safe and inexpensive nectar recipe means there's no reason to buy commercial ones. Finally, always place your clean hummingbird feeder in a shady spot, preferably in front of a windows that you can sit back and enjoy the show while feeding these amazing birds safely.

Some hummingbirds do migrate, spending winters in warmer latitudes and heading back into cooler areas to breed in the spring. Research has shown that they can fly non stop for over one thousand miles some one thousand, four hundred miles to be slightly more exact, that's about two thousand, two hundred kilometers as the hummingbird flies. That's the equivalent of flying without a break from Atlanta to Albuquerque, from Beirut to Budapest, or from Tokyo to Taipei, to give you

an idea to scale here. Full grown specimens of the ruby throated hummingbird usually measure about three inches that's nearly eight centimeters long, meaning that they can fly a mind boggling twenty nine million times the length of their body in one go. Relative to human body size. That'd be like Superman leaping into the air and taking one and a half trips around the globe before landing again. And the furthest migrating hummingbirds travel some three thousand, five hundred

miles during each seasonal trip. That's about five thousand, six hundred kilometers. Today's have pisode is based on the article HOWD make Hummingbird food Safely and Responsively on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Jesslinshields. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com. It's produced by Tyler Klang. Before more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.