What to clean bird feeders with

Be sure not to take the cleaning and maintenance of bird feeders in your yard so lightly, it only takes ten minutes to do so with a cheap, DIY cleaning solution.

What to clean bird feeders with is dish soap in hot water, in its own designated bowl. In time you can move onto an effective but stronger 50/50 white vinegar to hot water solution, with a bonus of killing germs. With a part 1/9 bleach to hot water solution, this agent is sure to remove stubborn build up and bacteria.

To do a proper job of cleaning bird feeders, you could go out and pay extra for anti-bacteria sprays for this purpose, but it can be done at no extra cost.

How to clean a bird feeder made in plastic or metal is with a simple diluted dish soap in a bowl of hot water, just as you would do while washing the dishes.

But through no fault of your own, your bird feeders can get a little more difficult to clean over time, so a stronger cleaning solution would be needed.

Its then time to mix up white vinegar with water to create a tougher cleaning agent for bird feeders of any type, except those made in wood.

More so, you can then move on to using any household bleach that must be diluted in hot with a part one to part nine mix. Never use too much bleach and never only use bleach to clean feeders.

Bleach only will damage any feeder but more so if its a feeder made in wood, be it in bare wood or worse still if its stained or been painted.

Answer to cleaning bird feeders of its build of muck, mold or hard to remove bird seed, is with any one solution mentioned, providing all bird feeders and its parts are allowed to soak for up to ten minutes, to soften up the grime.

Feeders that are made to hold suet would need a grease cutting cleaning agent, so use more household dish soap in boiling hot water with a longer soak for this reason.

Diluted liquid dish soap

First port of call when cleaning any type of bird feeder in your yard is with the simple solution of diluted dish soap.

Simple as that really, the same way you fill up your kitchen sink with dish water in hot water is the way you can go about cleaning feeders.

Difference being is that equipment for use by wildlife needs its own cleaning area, its therefore important to designate their own bowl for filling with hot water - with an option to add all different types of cleaning solutions if need be.

Don't use so much dish soap in your bowl of hot water in the backyard, as the bubbles it will create can hinder your cleaning effects.

Instead, use less soap with only bubbles sitting on top of the water, as oppose to spilling over.

And there you have it, the perfect solution for cleaning primarily hanging plastic or metal bird feeders - wooden bird feeders would need to be lightly wash over by hand, as too avoid wearing off paint or stain.

Stronger part water vinegar

You can make up a bowl of hot water with diluted vinegar, so you can use the vinegar solution for use as a cleaning agent for bird feeders.

What the idea of using a 50/50 white vinegar and water mixture is to act as anti-bacteria.

Grime, build up of food and stubborn hard to remove pieces off leftovers on the bird feeder platform, in the tubs or mesh feeders often need to be hand wash as to rub them off with force, while using a hard bristle brush or scour.

Its only when most of the hard to remove build up as gone you can come in with your DIY solution of 50% white vinegar with 50% hot water mix.

How much water with white vinegar you use relies on how much you can afford, but you will need to soak all available bird feeder parts in the vinegar mixture for a thorough clean.

I would personally make sure there's no lingering vinegar smell on the bird feeders after this wash, so it wouldn't hurt to now soak and wash the feeders with dish soap water.

Bleach water mixture

Now things are getting far more risky while cleaning your bird feeders, so remember bleach is very dangerous to us, but far more to wild birds.

With that in mind you cannot use straight-up bleach as it can destroy any kind of bird feeder of its color, while permanently damaging the surface.

Many uses of bleach includes removal of limescale, rust, below water use and in actual toilets being its main use - so of course it can't really be used on something that is intended to hold bird food, or can it...

Let's turn this harmful household cleaning agent into something we can work with.

With bleach in its liquid form, use the cap or a designated plastic cup of any kind with one capful of bleach only to pour into your bowl for cleaning wild bird equipment.

Now, with the same cap gently pour in to the bowl nine cups of hot water.

Proceed to allow the water to dilute the bleach but do help it a long be stirring it if need be, going careful not to splash.

What you end up with is the perfect cleaning agent for tackling stubborn bacteria ridden bird feeders with a more kinder cleaning liquid.

However, to work with bleach you must absolutely wear rubber gloves at all times, even going as far as wearing safety glasses or goggles if available.

Clean feeder of cleaning solution

Whatever you decide to clean bird feeders with using my ideas laid out for you above, there is one more thing you must remember.

All solutions create there own, often even hard to remove - stubborn build up of cleaning solution residue.

Dish soap can leave obvious white marks on bird feeders if not rinsed off with fresh clean water - just as you would clean glasses with running tap water.

Likewise, the part-vinegar part-water solution can be more smelling than leaving marks, so do rinse with hot soapy water - but once again remember to rinse of soapy water.

In the case of rinsing off your bird feeders of the bleach in hot water solution; the bleach must be completely washed off as any remaining bleach build up can slowly ruin any feeder - with even the lightest bit of bleach that comes into contact.

Finalize a thorough cleaning of bird feeders with hot soapy water within its own bowl for use with backyard bird feeders, bird houses and the bird bath if you like.

Finally, be sure to tap dry bird feeders where possible with paper towel, before allowing feeders to air dry out in the open.

To summarize

If you clean bird feeders in your backyard regularly, you will only need a simple dish soap and hot water solution to remove not so hard to remove food build up.

Clean every two to three days only while making sure to keep to a routine.

However, despite this feeders can take on more stubborn, hard to remove food over time due to wear and tear of feeders. Its important then to chang tactics by using a tougher, yet more effective DIY cleaning solution.

Simply revert to not only tackling stubborn build up, but killing germs with a 50/50 hot water and white vinegar solution, its that simple.

And while I don't recommend to use on wooden bird feeders of any kind, a diluted bleach and hot water mix can be highly effective, while killing more bacteria than before.

Simply add one-part bleach to nine-part hot water to create a safe but strong cleaning agent - for use on metal or plastic bird feeders only.

This bleach solution and all others must be used to clean all hooks, poles, hangers and trays that are connected with your feeders.

What you decide to clean bird feeders with, remember to then wash off the cleaning solutions with hot soapy water... while then rinsing off the dish soap water.

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