Atwood’s Farm and Ranch, HEB and Amazon top our list for the best bird seed sources in Waxahachie.
For anyone who’s clued in to the enjoyment of attracting wild birds to their backyard, knowing where to buy the best bird seed at the best price is important.
To plump up the cardinals, chickadees, mourning doves and any other bird you want to attract to a backyard haven, you’ll want to skip the big box home improvement and discount stores and get your bird feeding supplies at the spots we’ve found to be the best bird seed sources in Waxahachie.
Finding the best bird seed ingredients without fillers
Before taking a look at where to buy the best bird seed, let’s take a minute to talk about what makes the best ingredients for attracting wild birds without wasting money on seed that birds simply don’t care much for.
For a mix that attracts the broadest diversity of songbirds to your yard, look for ingredients lists that lean toward safflower, millet, sunflower seeds, and thistle. These ingredients will attract cardinals, mourning doves, sparrows, chickadees, finches, blue jays, titmouses and mockingbirds.
Avoid blends that are filled with cheap grains. Red millet (you want white proso millet instead), canary seed, wheat berries or so-called grain products are cheap and used to make a bird seed blend look like a good value — you think you’re buying a huge bag of bird seed for just a few dollars — but birds pick over these fillers which pile up as waste underneath a bird feeder.
And although milo, also known as sorghum, attracts a few birds, it’s not the seed preferred by most discriminating wild birds, so make sure that it’s not the first ingredient on the list because it’s also used to fill out cheap bags of bird seed.
The top three bird seed sources in Waxahachie
Atwood’s Ranch and Home
2825 Aspen Way
Waxahachie, TX 75165 [map]
Ever since Atwood’s Ranch and Home opened in Waxahachie in the mid-20-teens, serious birders in the area have finally had a resource that sells wild bird seed by the pallet, offering the best value for your bird seed dollars.
Atwood’s offers small and large bags of standard bird seed blends and bags of individual ingredients such as sunflower seeds, thistle and safflower seeds for making your own mix. If you’re trying to attract specific species to your feeder or dissuade others like blackbirds or cowbirds, you may prefer a DIY mix. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a Quick Guide to Seed Types for choosing the right seeds and getting the ratio right.
For a general bird seed with broad appeal, you are hard pressed to beat Atwood’s Premium Blend Superior Wild Bird Food, available in 40-pound bags for under $25.
Atwood’s top-of-the-line blend contains black sunflowers, millet, corn, milo, and peanut hearts for under 50¢ per pound — with no fillers.
Atwoods also has a wide variety of bird feeders, hummingbird feeders and other wild bird supplies.
HEB
800 North Highway 77
Waxahachie, TX 75165 [map]
Most bird seed blends you find on grocery store shelves are worthless bags of fillers with just enough sunflower seeds and millet to make you think you’re buying something the birds. But, that’s not the case with HEB’s top of the line bird seed blend.
A 6-pound bag of HEB Texas Supreme Wild Bird Seed contains only white millet, oil sunflower, sunflower chips, peanuts, safflower seeds, nyjer seeds (thistle) and striped sunflower seeds for a completely no-waste bird seed blend.
The HEB blend is a little more expensive than the Atwood’s offering, coming in at a little over $1 per pound, but you’ll not find a bird seed of higher quality anywhere else in town.
HEB also has an informative Texas bird feeding guide with details about which seeds attract which species.
Amazon
For having a high quality bird seed delivered to your door, there’s no escaping Amazon’s allure of convenience and low prices. And Amazon offers several brands of wild bird seed that promise to maintain the wild birds you attract to your backyard.
Valley Farms Super Deluxe Wild Bird Food
Valley Farms Super Deluxe Wild Bird Food attracts an even greater variety of wild birds with irresistible cranberries, raisins and walnuts that round out the usual fare of sunflower seeds, peanuts, millet, safflower and thistle.
It’s among the pricier bird seed blends, and it’s perishable. But, for treating your feathered friends and helping them out in the nutritionally-lean months of winter and early spring, Valley Farms Super Deluxe Wild Bird Food is indispensable.
Des Moines Feed Co. Fruit & Nut Non GMO Wild Bird Seed Food
Des Moines Feed is a family-owned company out of Iowa and offers a truly deluxe wild bird seed blend that’s air cleaned and filler free.
The mix has eight different fruits along with nuts and seeds to attract a diverse range of songbirds and other birds, including blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, house finches, robins, white-breasted nuthatches, and even woodpeckers.
The mix is also available as a subscription, so you can always have a bag en route as you’re scooping out the last of the bag you have open.
Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food
Audubon Park Songbird Blend contains white proso millet, black oil sunflower seeds, cracked corn, safflower seeds, chipped sunflower seeds, peanuts and striped sunflower seeds to attract finches, sparrows, juncos, chickadees and cardinals.
Audubon park is another family-owned company, and the seeds are blended in America.