Feeding Backyard Birds and Saving Money

by Marion Patterson | Nov 10, 2022 | Birds, Nature

Sunflower seed, cracked corn, milo.

Feeding backyard birds is fun, but it’s become expensive. The price of black oil sunflower seed has doubled in just a couple of years.

To keep our birds well-fed and our budget under control we use Fourth Story Feeders.   What are they? Well, the first story is the ground. The second is a picnic table or other platform a few feet off the ground, and the third is a metal shepherd’s hook shoved into the ground that gets feeders up four or five feet. We use all these and increasingly have taken the feed up the elevator to the fourth floor.

Raccoons, deer, opossums, and even bears love a nocturnal snack of expensive bird seed. Squirrels and wild turkeys gobble it up during the day. These animals easily access seeds on the first, second, and third floor – but not the fourth. Except for bears who can create complete havoc with feeders left out overnight.

Fourth Story Feeders for Back Yard Birds

Here’s how we created a feeding station that’s easy for birds to reach but inaccessible to deer, turkeys, raccoons, and opossums:

1. Bought the tallest shepherd’s hook we could find.
2. Pulled our homemade picnic table to a spot easy to see through our windows.
3. Drilled two holes in the wooden table exactly the size of the “feet” of the shepherd’s hook. Used a hammer to lightly tap the “feet” into the holes.
4. Suspended silo and suet feeders from the hooks that are now eight or nine feet above the ground and out of reach of deer and nearly impossible for raccoons and opossums to climb.

The birds love eating from the fourth story but there’s a problem. How to fill feeders so high up? Well, again, here’s how we solved the problem:

We scrounged a four-foot-long stick from a nearby lake that a beaver had cut and chewed off the bark. We bought an “S” hook from a hardware store and drilled a hole in the end of the stick. We pressed one side of the “S” hook into the wooden stick and had a handy tool.

With the hook on the stick, we can easily lift a feeder and hang it on the fourth story. A broomstick works as well as a beaver stick and the telescoping metal poles used to attach to paint rollers also can work. Most already have a hook built into the pole.

Hummingbird and platform feeders with a baffle.

Squirrels can climb the steel shaft of the shepherd’s hook, but we foil them by coating its surface with a light spray of grease. Baffles are better at keeping these smart, pesky mammals at bay.

Materials Needed

Bird feeders
Picnic table
Shepherd’s Hook feeder holder
Pole for lifting feeder
“S” hookTube of spray grease

Helpful Tools

Drill and bit the same size as the shepherd’s hook’s diameter
Hammer

Although we still offer birdseed on the first, second, and third floors, now we present most of the seeds on the fourth floor. Saves seeds. Saves money. Frustrates deer, raccoons, turkeys, opossums, and squirrels.