Posted: 6/21/2006 3:00:29 PM EDT
| Can I put koolaid in a hummingbird feeder? I don't have any food coloring to make colored sugar water. Will they come to a feeder if the water is clear? |
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The koolaid should be OK, just don't overdoo it. Hummers will come to a clear feeder if the feedr is set up with a red plastic tip. Keep an eye out for tired birds. Walk your lawn before you mow if you are on a busy flyway. (From experience - almost mowed a tired hummer, caught it , put it is a shoebox with a mesh top and stuck a sugar/H2O filled eyedropper in one end. Let her go the next day after she had a chance to have some R%R - too cool) |
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No; don't put Kool-Aid in a Hummingbird feeder. They don't need the dye. Mix 1 cup sugar with four cups water. It's not colorful, but they will be at your feeder all day. Hummingbirds are attracted to the color yellow, not red, make sure the centers of your feeder spouts are yellow. Perches at the feeding spouts allow them to rest and are a good idea if you can find a model with perches. Hope that helps. ETA: Change the syrup in the feeder ever two or three days, it will start to ferment after being contaminated during the feeding process. |
Not table sugar!!!!!! |
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Yup, white cane sugar is fine. good Hummingbird info.....www.hummingbirds.net/index.html |
hahahaha
| I recently moved to a place where there are hummingbirds. All the feeders I've seen used colored water, that's why I asked. I'm on really slow dial up so searching sucks. I have two feeders, one is old with a faded red base and perches. The other is newer with a red base and yellow flowers around the holes. I'll just make some sugar water and see what happens. Thanks. |
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We have some real good stuff that is syrup that you just mix with water (don't need to refridgerate or anything, comes in a clear container with red nectar inside). Forget the brand name, but our feeder is the only one the humming birds go to, the neighbors ones are just neglected. (ours have little pedistals for them to stand on (which they WILL do, instead of flying and drinking)) I will tell you this though, if you don't have your feeder out yet you are way too late. You need them out in the early spring, as when the babies find a hot spot so to say they will always return back for more, and putting them out late will just give you a neglected feeder. ETA: This is the stuff we use and works GREAT! and this is our feeder:  We draw our water directly from Honeoye lake, so I don't know if the fact that there isn't any chlorine or other additives that are normally present in municiple sources helps at all... I think we need a second feeder or something, as we always see the hummers fighting each other over the nectar and chasing each other away |
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Don't color the water. Don't use anything but sugar...cane or raw is fine. Don't use honey. If your feeder has the red tips, the hummers will find it. Clean it at least once (better twice) a week and replace the nectar. Don't waste your money on the commercial stuff. It's overpriced sugar water. Ratio is 1 to 4 -sugar to water. |
agreed been feedng mine for several years now and color means nothing. Spend the extra money to plant flowers and such to attract the birds |
Hummingbirds are quite territorial as they need so much food per ounce of body weight, any good feeding area is worth fighting over to them, I'd imagine. An extra feeder would probably help. Then they'll have more spots to feed and won't get so testy with each other. |
agreed |
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We use clear water and sugar in a 1:3 mix ratio. We used to use 1:4, but the birds were draining the reservoir too fast. With a 1:3, they tend to drink a little water out of the birdbath instead of guzzling it out of the feeder. Here are a couple of shots of one of the better hummingbird feeder designs:  
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Place more than one feeder in your yard. It is harder for one male to guard them. Great to watch them chase each other. And we have a large woodpecker who loves to drink out of one of the feeders too. Front and back seed feeders are emptied each day....cardinals, etc. Woodpecker block lasts ten days. Wife refills the humming bird feeders every three days. enjoy... |
Oh, yeah, and you have to bring the water-sugar mixture to a boil to make it dissolve. You can just microwave it to a boil, in something like a pyrex measuring cup |
    Love these guys. They are fierce and competitve little buggers. If you get lot's of action around a feeder be sure and keep it clean and filled, they become dependant on a regulare source. No matter how many feeders you have they will fight. These pics are in my backyard BTW |
Yours don't take much! I used to have a problem with the birds drinking the 8oz. reservoir in about 6 hours. I would fill it after dark, and by noon it would be empty. I upped the concentration from 4:1 to 3:1 water to sugar, and it boosted the longevity of the mix to about 14 hours of daylight. I imaging that 1:1 would be quite enough to keep them going for a few days... 
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They never drain it. She usually dumps a bit out. They tend to get a little icky after 4 or 5 days. |