Bird Food

Sunflower Hearts and Chips

Take the shell off sunflower seed and two things happen at once: the mess under the feeder disappears, and the clock on spoilage starts running much faster.

Sunflower hearts are black oil or confection sunflower kernels with the shell mechanically removed. Chips are the same kernels broken into pieces. Everything you put in the feeder is edible, so nothing lands on the ground, and the ring of dead grass under a black oil sunflower feeder never forms.

That is the whole appeal, and it is a real one. It is also why hulled sunflower has two problems whole seed does not: it costs more, and it spoils fast enough that a rainy week can ruin a feeder full.

This page works through what you are actually buying, the mess arithmetic, the spoilage clock, which feeders suit hulled seed, and how the cost compares once you count only the part that reaches a bird.

Hearts, chips and fines: what is in the bag#

Hulled sunflower is sold in grades, and the grade changes both which birds use it and how fast it goes wrong.

Hearts are whole intact kernels, roughly 3/8 inch (10 mm) long. They flow well, hold their oil longest of the hulled grades, and suit medium and large birds.

Chips are kernels cracked into two to four pieces. They pass through small ports, suit goldfinches, siskins and juncos, and are the base of most no-mess blends. More broken surface means faster oxidation.

Fines and dust are the powder at the bottom of the bag. Birds ignore it, it cakes in wet weather, and it is the first thing to go rancid. A bag heavy with dust is a bag that has been handled a lot or stored badly.

The mess arithmetic#

A whole black oil sunflower seed is roughly a quarter shell by weight. Feed 20 pounds (9 kg) of it over a season and about 5 pounds (2.3 kg) of hull ends up on the ground, along with whatever whole seeds get flicked out by birds hunting for a better one.

Hulled seed reduces that to close to zero. The practical consequences:

• No bare, dying patch under the feeder. Sunflower hulls suppress plant growth, which is why the ring appears in the first place.
• Nothing accumulating for rodents to work at night.
• No hull mat trapping moisture against a deck, patio or balcony floor.
• Much less sweeping, which is the deciding factor for most balcony and apartment feeders.

If the ground under your feeder is the reason you are reading this, hulled seed solves it more completely than any tray, mat or repositioning trick in seed mess, hulls and dead grass.

Who turns up when the shell comes off#

Hulled sunflower is eaten by everything that takes whole sunflower, plus a group that otherwise cannot participate.

The clearest gains are small-billed and ground-feeding birds. Chips let American goldfinches and pine siskins feed without the work of cracking, and juncos, chipping sparrows and white-throated sparrows will clean up pieces from a tray. Even a Carolina wren will take chips in cold weather, which it will not do with whole seed.

The cost of that breadth is that it applies to the birds you may not want too. House sparrows and starlings find hulled sunflower easier than whole seed, so if you are running striped sunflower as a filter, adding a hearts feeder next to it undoes the filter.

The spoilage clock#

This is the part most people learn the expensive way.

A shell is a waterproof, airtight package. Remove it and the kernel's oil is exposed to air, sunlight and moisture. Rough working figures, which vary a lot with your climate:

The rule that follows: put out two or three days' worth at a time, not two or three weeks' worth. A half-filled feeder emptied and refilled twice a week wastes far less hulled seed than a full one topped up monthly, whatever the feeder's capacity suggests.

Feeders that suit hulled seed#

The feeder qualities that matter change once the hulls are gone. What you want is drainage, a roof, and a body you can strip and dry in under a minute.

Good: covered window feeders, where the no-mess benefit is most visible and the small volume forces frequent turnover. Mesh trays with open floors. Tube feeders with a wide rain hood and drainage holes in the base.

Workable with care: hopper feeders, but fill them a third full at most. Their whole design assumes seed that keeps.

Poor: any feeder without drainage, any feeder you cannot open without tools, and open platforms in a rainy climate. Hulled seed in an undrained tray is a mold culture with a bird-shaped delivery system.

Cleaning frequency should go up when you switch. Fortnightly is the general standard in how often to clean bird feeders; with hearts in warm weather, weekly is closer to right.

Cost per pound of kernel, not per pound of bag#

Hearts usually sell for around twice the price per pound of black oil sunflower. That sounds decisive until you count what reaches the birds.

Whole seed loses roughly a quarter of its weight to shell, so a pound of whole seed delivers about 12 ounces (340 g) of kernel. A pound of hearts delivers 16 ounces (454 g). Adjusting for that, hearts cost roughly one and a half times as much per pound of food actually eaten, not twice.

Then subtract two things on the hearts side: seed thrown out of the feeder by birds sorting for something better, which drops sharply with a single-ingredient hulled seed, and the time and effort of clearing hulls. Add one thing back: spoilage losses, which are higher with hearts unless you buy small and turn it over fast.

The honest summary is that hearts are more expensive but not dramatically so, and the gap narrows to almost nothing in a small yard where a full bag gets used quickly. In a large rural yard buying 40 pound (18 kg) sacks, whole seed wins clearly.

Three ways people waste money on hearts#

1. Filling a large feeder. Capacity is a liability with hulled seed. Match the fill to about three days of traffic and take the rest back to the bin.
2. Buying a big bag for the price break. Sunflower hearts are the one seed where the bulk discount is usually a false economy, because the last third goes rancid. Storage technique helps but does not defeat chemistry; see storing bird seed.
3. Using hearts as the only seed. Hulled sunflower in every feeder means you are paying the premium even for the birds and feeders where whole seed would do equally well.

A hybrid that works for most yards#

The setup that gets the benefit without the cost is usually a split one.

Run whole black oil sunflower in the main pole-mounted feeder, where mess falls on grass, gravel or mulch and nobody minds. Run hearts or chips in the feeders near the house: the window feeder, the deck rail, the balcony hook, the spot over a patio. That is where hulls are actually a problem, and it is also where the small volumes get eaten fast enough to stay fresh.

If you want the no-mess effect across the whole setup, look at no-mess and hull-free blends, which combine chips with hulled millet and peanut pieces. Just read the label carefully, because some blends pad the bag with cheap filler and rely on the word "no-mess" to do the selling.