How to Offer Peanuts to Birds

Well, the truth is, any way is fine. But birds crack and eat peanuts differently, and so they prefer different ways it's offered to them. For instance, some birds hold peanuts between their feet and peck and eat it. Those kind of birds can pretty much open and eat it in any way it's offered, with or without the shell. The only problem is that sometimes the shell or large peanut half will fall to the ground and become wasted, maybe just temporarily, until another ground feeder finds it, but it could still be wasted permanently and go bad and get wet and moldy. So here is how I offer my birds peanuts.

For the small birds that hold food with their feet, like chickadees and titmice, I usually like to break a peanut half into four to six pieces, so in case they do drop and waste it it's not that big of a loss. With the bigger birds that hold food with their feet, like Blue Jays, etc., they are absolute masters at being able to crack open anything and not dropping or wasting much. They always go for the peanut halves, and if there's not any, will go for the smaller peanut pieces, which they sometimes swallow on the spot since it's about the size they tear off and eat when they peck at a peanut half. They would also readily eat whole peanuts in the shell, but I don't offer that option much anymore. I've even seen the tiny little chickadees and titmice fly off with a huge peanut shell. It's so cute.

For the birds that don't hold food with their feet, like wrens, nuthatches, mockingbirds, etc., they generally prefer the smaller, broken-up pieces just like I feed the chickadees and titmice. Now, a nuthatch might be able to not waste a peanut half since they wedge it into the bark and peck and eat it like that, so it's probably easier for them to have a big peanut so they have a lot to peck at, but they are also fine with smaller pieces. A mockingbird prefers small pieces, and I even have a special small sauce cup where I put finely ground-up pieces from a chopper, and the mockingbirds readily visit that one compared to the other small sauce cups with the bigger pieces and full peanut halves. Now, wrens, they will lay food on a hard surface and peck at it to get it into very small pieces where they can swallow it. So, with that said, they would probably prefer both small or big peanuts.

So, there you have it. Those are the different ways you can offer peanuts to your little feathered cuties.