home made hummingbird feeder

To say that I am less than impressed with hummingbird feeders sold on the market is an understatement. Similarly is my dim view on most pet and garden products in general. Most of these feeders sold here are cheap craps made in PROC and sold at inflated price of 10x to 50x of whole sale prices. Hummingbird feeders on the market are the most gaudy and cheaply made products that you can waste your money on. Don't get me started about the red dyed nectar.



No one should feed hummingbird with store-bought red nectar. All you need is a solution of 1 part of plain sugar with 3 parts of clean water.

Go shop for hummingbird feeders online there are selections in tens of thousands. Problem is 99.9% of them are dead-follow-dead designs. These design focus on what a simpleton human thinks instead of what is important to the birds. Most are difficult to clean and handle. Way too many hold too much nectar.

I have been on the look out for a well made and aesthetically acceptable hummingbird feeder ever since I moved to my current home 8 years ago. I have yet to find one.

The only solution is to make my own eventually. To tide me over I grudgingly settled on one that is cheap and not so bad.

this is ones that i settled on knowing that i would eventually make my own

I would eventually come across this design on OSU's  students research feedback page. It is a purpose-made design for studying the nectar consumption by hummingbirds in different locales. I am going to shamefully copy it for personal use (I would never copy someone's else work for commercial purpose).

this (photo linked from OSU's blog) is the most sensible feeder design that i'd ever seen on OSU's hummingbird research blog

Shopping for the pieces takes a bit of work. Here is what I figured out about the construction. The container is a 50ml centrifuge tube. The feeder tip is a all-plastic syringe dispensing tip often used by scientists and hobbyists for dispensing small measure of fluid. I think it is around 14-gauge (largest ID) to accommodate the needle-like hummingbird beaks. See wikipedia syringe needle dimension table. The "flower" is a hand-cut piece from a plastic sheet likely found in arts or sheet plastic supply.

50ml centrifuge tubes - it (good price and free shipping) just became unavailable right in front of my eyes on amazon

One challenge with buying material to make this feeder is you either pay with an arm or leg or have to buy in large quantity. My decision is to buy in bulk and make a lot to give to neighbors and friends.

i was hoping to find a 14-gauge dispensing tips in bright colors like yellow or red but this muted green is all i can find at reasonable price

All the needed parts can be found on Amazon if you don't mind buying in a batch of 50.

more to come - stay tuned