gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer) (12/12/89)
In article <1423@uwm.edu> burkett@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Edward W Burkett) writes: >I was talking to a friend the other day about using peanut butter as >a winter bird food. I have never used it before but I have heard rumors >that it should not be used because many species of birds lack the digestive >enzymes necessary to break it down, hence the bird gets "Clogged UP" and >may die. >Has anyone ever heard of this? Is there really scientific evidence to support >this claim? Should peanut butter be used as a winter bird food? I don't actually know of any empirical evidence concerning the danger/safety of peanut butter as a bird food but, offhand I'd say that it seems unlikely to be a real danger. The birds that are likely to eat peanut butter are most likely things like nuthatches, chickadees and woodpeckers. Although these species are predominantly insectivores they will take a lot of seeds at feeders. Sunflower seeds and peanuts are pretty similar in composition (a lot of oil and protein, not too much carbohydrate). I would think sunflower seeds, once mashed up (the technical term is smooshed :*) ) in the bird's digestive system would be a lot like ingested peanut butter. This may all seem like hand-waving (turns out it _is_ hand-waving) but it seems sensible to me. BTW we stick to black-oil sunflower seeds, a millet-sunflower-peanut heart mix, thistle and Oregon suet blocks at our feeders so I have no direct experience with peanut butter. Gregg ******************************************************************************* "In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real dead frog!!" -- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division *******************************************************************************