All Seed Is Not Created Equal...
Our apologies to Thomas Jefferson for paraphrasing his famous line, but here at Wild Birds Unlimited, it's all about Quality and Freshness. All Wild Birds Unlimited Seed blends are formulated to attract local birds. We receive our seed fresh regularly, directly from the seed mill, where it is blended as it is needed. Our seed never sits on a warehouse shelf 'waiting' to go to the store. Our seed blends never contain any 'filler' seeds - seeds added to bring the cost down but that the birds don't eat. 100% of what is in our bags of seed is !00% consumed by birds.

(Bird)Food for Thought
Let’s face it; there are a lot of ways your bird feeding dollars can be wasted. For instance, squirrels, grackles and starlings may put a dent in your budget as they devour everything in sight. But feeding a poor quality "bargain" blend of bird seed from a big box store can also be a waste of money, even if the seed is cheaper. Here's why:

First, it is important to understand that, unlike humans, birds eat to survive, and typically, they eat just what they need to to get them through to the next day - they don't typically store up fat reserves. So birds are looking for food that is efficient to get to and that has what they need, namely fat and protein. You might notice that as a bird eats, it will pick up a seed and then may drop it. Scientists believe that a bird actually weighs a seed to determine if it is worth the effort it takes to crack and eat it. There can be a couple reasons a seed isn't worth their time - it may be underdeveloped within the shell, or it could be old and have lost its moisture content.

While we might look at a bag of bird seed and think 'seed is seed,' that actually isn't true. Not all seed is created (or winds up) equal! Birdseed goes through cleaning and sorting processes at the mills before it is bagged up and sold to retailers. Lightweight seeds are blown away with most of the chaff, twigs and broken seeds during the cleaning process. Not wanting to lose this product, the mills often mix these undesirable seeds with less expensive 'filler' seeds that birds don't necessarily eat, and sold as 'bargain brand' bird food. 

Another important factor is freshness. As birdseed sits, like any grain product, it simply dries out, losing valuable nutrient oils and necessary moisture content birds need to help digest the seed - in short, it becomes stale and the birds won't eat it just like we wouldn't eat stale chips.

The bottom line is that Quality and Freshness really do count - birds recognize the difference between fresh, nutritious seed and seed that isn't worth their time. While they might pick through bargain seed blends to find the occasional valuable nugget, they will waste your hard-earned money and make a mess in the process, if they eat it at all. We hear it all the time..."I bought a bargain brand at XYZ and the birds won't eat it!" If the birds don't eat it, is it really a better deal?

Wild Birds Unlimited seeds blends are made up of the cleaner, weightier, higher quality, "premium" seeds that come from the cleaning and sorting process are purchased to provide you and your birds with the best feeding experience possible. You will not find a better value in bird seed than our quality WBU Seed Blends. With our regionally selected formulas; fresh, quality ingredients; and no filler seeds, you can rest assured that you will not be wasting any of your money on worthless, uneaten seed.

We have already established that birds are looking for efficient and nutritiously worthwhile food sources. You want a seed blend that will attract the widest variety of birds and be the best value for your dollar. All Wild Birds Unlimited seed blends offer these benefits, but our Wild Birds Unlimited No-Mess seeds and seed blends take this one step further! A study was recently conducted using our Wild Birds Unlimited Supreme seed blend. Our Supreme seed blend contains Black Oil Sunflower Seed, Striped Sunflower Seed, Safflower Seed, and Sunflower Hearts mixed in a proprietary blend. In the study, all the shells were removed from a 20# bag of Supreme blend and the meat and shells were weighed. Bearing in mind that Supreme blend already has some sunflower hearts (sunflower seeds with the shells removed) as one of its ingredients, the shells in a bag of Supreme blend accounted of 42%, or roughly eight pounds, of the 20 pound bag! Nearly half of the bag was shells! Wild Birds Unlimited No-Mess seeds and seed blends effectively eliminate shell waste all together, making them an even better value than our in-the-shell seed blends, and our best-selling seed blend for the past 8 or more years!