When Should You Put Out Your Hummingbird Feeder in Southern Idaho?

My husband actually listened to me when I asked for something a few months ago. He gave me a beautiful hummingbird feeder for Christmas. It also has an ant guard and pretty flowers and he even bought the pole, asked where I wanted it placed, and installed it. I was so happy and surprised that he listened and followed up with preparation without me asking, I wasn’t prepared to answer the question he asked next.

Is it Time to Hang Your Hummingbird Feeder in Southern Idaho?

He asked, “Should we put out the hummingbird feeder now, or wait until it warms up?” The warm weather was so delayed this year, I wasn’t prepared to answer. After doing some quick research, I found I’m doing okay. Now is the perfect time to get it going.

I felt pride when I had the answer to the next question. “Should we buy hummingbird food?” Nope. There are two ingredients in hummingbird food, and we had them already, sugar and water. You can boil water or just use hot water, but either way a mixture of 4 parts water to 1 part sugar is the whole recipe. Some people use red dye thinking it will attract more hummingbirds, but it can be harmful. It sounds too simple, but that’s all there is to it. When the feeder runs dry, clean it with 2 parts water to 1 part vinegar, rinse, add sugar water again, and hang.

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All that has to happen after that is changing the food every 2 - 3 days. I’m hoping they will enjoy the new feeder. If I get this one to go over well, I may be able to pull the husband to the dark side and install more next year.

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