Bird seed Q&A : what are sunflower chips?

Whole sunflower kernels or "coarse" sunflower chips.

Sunflower chips are one of our best moving bird seed ingredients but what are sunflower chips anyway?  Well in the bird seed industry we often refer to hulled sunflower seeds as sunflower "chips" or sunflower "hearts".  "Coarse" sunflower chips are whole kernels, "medium" chips are split kernels and "fine" sunflower chips are finely chopped kernels. 

Sunflower chips are the perfect food for birds because their high oil content makes them a very nutritional food source.  In fact sunflower is the most preferred food of most seed eating birds.  Sunflower chips provide an immediate energy source (since they do not need to be hulled) thus allowing birds to conserve their energy which is especially important in the cold winter months.

Sunflower chips are the perfect food for people too because they are considered a "no mess solution" because there are no hulls to pick up behind the birds.  They can also be a "no sprout" solution if you use finely chopped sunflower seeds because they will not germinate under the feeder. 

Wow sounds good eh?  What's the catch?  Well sunflower chips are expensive in comparison to most millet based bird seed products and many of the common grocery or chain stores do not sell pure sunflower chips.   You may need to find it at a more specialized wild bird store or a feed store with a large bird seed section.

This fall it looks like sunflower chips could be a bit tough to find.  Last year's crop of sunflower has been just about consumed and the outlook for new crop supply is not looking as good as in past years.  So farmers who do have old crop sunflower are holding tight to their inventory, hoping that the already record high sunflower prices will rise even further.  Sunflower processors are having supply problems and are having trouble meeting contract commitments, leaving bird seed manufacturers like ourselves pulling our hair out and scrambling for supply.  Just another interesting bird seed season in the making.

Despite my grumbling about supply, I still am a big fan of sunflower chips,  if you haven't yet tried them in your feeder get a small package and try them out.  I think you will be amazed at how many birds these nutritional little seeds will attract.