How We Produce Our Wild Bird Seed
Bird seed sown and grown at Street End Farm – then delivered direct to our customers!
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There are very many bird food companies who sell bird seed for garden birds. However there are very few businesses that specialise in the growing, harvesting, blending, finishing and supply of really high quality, home produced bird foods. We are one such company! We are farmers who are dedicated to producing cereal grains and oil seeds of the highest quality and cleanliness, which we offer to our customers either as straight seeds, or as nutritious home-produced seed mixes. We have specialised in growing bird seed crops for over 20 years now; 20 years of continuous development helped (of course!) by input from our customers. We can control the whole production process from drilling the seed to final mixing and cleaning – keeping a close eye on all aspects of production to ensure that our customers receive the very best, locally grown bird seed – from the very best producers. We currently grow sunflowers, white millet, red millet, plain canary seed, naked oats, oil seed rape and wheat for your garden birds. All zero air-mile products. The products which we are unable to grow on the farm (due to the unsuitable climate) are niger seed, peanuts, safflower and sunflower hearts. In line with our commitment to minimise our carbon footprint, we source these products from Europe where possible, however peanuts and niger seed (which need a really hot climate) have to come from farther afield. I thought you might like an insight into the various farming processes involved in producing our bird seed.. |
1. Cultivating the land
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2. Drilling the crops
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3. Monitoring plant growth
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4. Harvesting the crops
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5. Drying the crops
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6. Pre–Cleaning and Cleaning the seeds
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7. Mixing and Blending
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8. Bagging Your Birdseed
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9. Off to a new home
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10. And hungry customers will be the judge!
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Preparation of a well- cultivated, free draining seed bed is really important when growing all crops, but particularly the bird seed crops. They have a short growing season so they need to be able to establish good roots and a comfortable bed early on! As farm vehicles have become bigger and heavier, soil compaction goes deeper so more effort has to go into preparing a fine, level seed bed which will drain. Richard will start with a deep- tine subsoiler to break up compacted ground.
He then will work and firm the ground with a variety of different cultivators depending on the seeds to be planted. Millet and Plain Canary Seeds are very small seeds, requiring a shallow, fine seed bed. Sunflowers seeds, being much larger, require a deeper bed.
Most of the bird seed crops are drilled in the Spring when the weather and soil temperatures start to rise. Wheat and Oil Seed Rape are planted in the Autumn, but the rest of the bird seeds are drilled between March and May, with the sunflowers going in last. The 2 key things which drills are required to do are drill seeds a. at even depth and b. with even placement. Obviously, seed beds need to be moist at drilling time – without moisture, seeds won’t germinate.
Drills are also complicated pieces of machinery – they work the ground, plant, press and harrow all in one pass! Being able to do all these functions in one trip across the ground dramatically reduces our fuel usage, and minimises the impact of fuel price on the cost of production. Richard works out how many tonnes of each crop we think we will need for the following year – and then plants the calculated seed population in the necessary acreage. This relies on accurate business forecasting! It is our aim to match the supply to the demand, which can be quite a challenge because how much garden birds eat is totally dependent on the weather, and no-one seems to be able to forecast that accurately!
The growing season is the monitoring season! Early on in the season we undertake soil analysis to ensure that the ‘soil indices’ are correct. Soil indices are the levels of Phosphate, Potash and Magnesium present. Nowadays, we routinely have to add Sulphur to our crops. Because the UK air is now so much cleaner, Sulphur is no longer deposited in raindrops and crops can easily become Sulphur deficient.
During the growing season Richard and his Agronomist ( Steve Cook) regularly walk the whole farm, examining all the crops to check for early signs of pests or disease. Everything likes to eat sunflowers, particularly slugs, and it takes very little time for slugs to decimate a field of young sunflower plants—so we are always extra vigilant in the couple of weeks after drilling. Due to the diverse range of crops we now grow on the farm, this monitoring of plant health is incredibly important, since they all have specific needs and challenges during their growing life ( a bit like children really!).
This is what farming is all about– excitement and anticipation as the combine rolls and harvest starts! One of the main challenges for our combine is to be able to deal effectively with a really diverse range of crops, the seeds of which vary dramatically in size and density. There is a huge variation between, say millet, sunflowers, wheat, peas, beans and oil seed rape and the combine has many intricate settings to allow it to deal effectively with the range. Our aim is to produce combined seeds which are in a good condition ( and have not been damaged by the process) and are as dry as possible.
Oil seed rape is harvested first, usually in early July, followed then by wheat, naked oats and our canary seed. For us, there is then a break in combining, during which time Richard starts preparing the ground for the winter crops. At this time, our neighbours put their combines to bed for the year – but ‘ Lexi’ (our Claas Lexion combine) is still on standby – she still has work to do! The red millet and white millet and the sunflowers will be harvested in late September/early October depending on the autumnal weather .We obviously hope for warm autumn sunshine to help nature finish drying these crops and if it is cold and rainy –it can be a very stressful time, since so much depends on a successful harvest.
All crops will come off the field with a moisture content which reflects the weather. They will need to be dried down to an optimal moisture content for storage. To do this, we place them on a drive-over drying floor and then pass warm air up through the grains to remove any excess moisture. We perform regular grain sampling during this drying period to check on moisture and grain health. The new drying floor is a welcome addition and has made the logistics of drying our bird seed crops much easier.
Once dry, the seeds are then pre-cleaned to remove any dirt and debris. Because we do our own cleaning (and Richard is extremely particular!), we can clean the seeds and grains to an extremely high standard. No rubbish, dust or debris for our customers. Obviously, because we do it all on the farm, we are in complete control of the final product.
The mixing and blending process is another exciting bit! Turning the individual seeds into high quality seed mixes, each with its own identity and positioning within our product range. Our range of mixes has been thoughtfully and skilfully created by Richard to offer products for pretty much every feeding requirement. Not all wild bird seed from other producers is good; we focus on producing mixes which are nutritionally balanced and ’make sense’! And if we don’t have it for you, and you would like a specific product – please let us know!
One of the main key features about our home-produced products is their freshness. Because we control everything ‘in-house’ (or perhaps that should be ‘on-farm’!) we can match up supply to demand. So you won’t receive birdseed which has been sitting in a bag for weeks – we can guarantee that it will have been freshly mixed, checked and bagged up before being dispatched.
Our courier picks up from us daily Monday to Friday – and all goods are on Next Working Day Delivery (unless they are travelling to Northern Scotland or the Highlands and Islands, where they are usually delivered in between 2 and 3 working days). So you really won’t have to wait long to sample our produce!
And of course, the final judges of our products will be your garden birds! We constantly have customers telling us how many more birds they see in their garden since feeding our products.