Perky-Pet Patented Upside Down Thistle Feeder 399

I purchased this feeder because I had too many house sparrows on my other nyjer seed feeder. This feeder is not much of an improvement. Still see sparrows dining (including males). Chicadees of course don’t notice a difference between the two and are frequent visitors. Goldfinch also visit. Am pretty sure my juncos won’t like this new feeder but I’ll have to wait until November to know for sure, but they were a curiosity since they avoid my other feeders. Still a good feeder, but deducted one star since it doesn’t discourage the house sparrows.

Here is why this product rates one star:

If you have birds other than goldfinches on your thistle feeder they will figure out how to hang upside down and feed on this one (just like the goldfinches do in the picture of this product). They are plentiful here in north Georgia and took most literally less than an hour. At first it baffled most of the non-goldfinches. Then after watching their gold cousins they jumped on and let themselves “fall” upside down and just hung on and went to feeding. Didn’t look as natural for them but sure didn’t keep them from feeding (and keeping the goldfinches from feeding since their are more non-gold finches). So if you are buying this product to allow only the goldfinches to feed it is a waste of money. In general I’m a Perky Pet (the company that sells this feeder) fan, but they know full well this feeder does not “allow goldfinches to feed undisturbed” and continue to include this false advertising (aka lying) in their description and pictures. Guess most looking to exclude other birds keep buying it without reading these reviews. Glad you are not one of them dear reader 😉

Using anything but 100% thistle seed in this feeder is also a waste of money if you have squirrels. This feeder is made of very flimsy plastic and if they want the seed in it they will in short order chew on the plastic at the holes to get to the seed inside. As the other reviews here indicate the thin plastic will take the squirrels only a day or two to turn this feeder into their own personal feedbag (and destroy the feeder in the process). When using 100% thistle this normally won’t be a problem, as squirrels do not like thistle but will destroy the feeder to eat the other seeds in bags labelled “Goldfinch seed” (since it is a blend of seeds, not just thistle).

There are other disadvantages but the last point I’ll make is this is a very flimsy feeder in general. If you are looking to buy something this disposable to feed all the finches & thistle lovers there are lower cost alternatives right here on Amazon.

IMO this product isn’t a best buy regardless what your feeder purchase goals, which is to say informed buyers should make a better choice.

My wife wanted a goldfinch feeder for Mother’s Day, so I went to my local store and told them that I needed a feeder and food that would not attract sparrows, which we have a lot of in our backyard, especially when we are feeding Baltimore Orioles with grape jelly. They sold me a metal mesh feeder with small holes over the full length, along with Nyjer seed mixed with sunflower seed pieces. At first it was great — goldfinches aplenty and few sparrows. WIthin a month, though, the sparrows totally dominated the feeder and would chase off the goldfinches. It also attracted cardinals (which was fine), mourning doves and house finches. On the advice of the experts at the store, I switched to pure Nyjer seeds and it didn’t help. Eventually I was going through 1.5 pounds of seed every other day and the birds were making quite a mess in our back yard, especially on the furniture. My wife asked me to take the feeder down.

I did a little research, including asking an AI or two what to do. The best suggestion I found was to use an upside-down feeder, which seemed logical to me, because the goldfinches are quite acrobatic, especially when they are feeding on our echinacea in the late summer and fall.

So, I ordered the Perk-Pet 399 and set it up and BAM! problem solved. The sparrows were gone within two days and never succeeded in feeding from it. The mourning doves don’t know what to make of it. The goldfinches put on quite a show as they twirl around on the perches and they seem to appreciate the absence of sparrows, though they do fight among themselves from time to time. The pictures I took tell the story — this feeder works! The photos are proof of my experience with it.

One other thing I like is that there is zero mess when filling the feeder. WIth the mesh feeder, a lot of seed poured out from the sides and was hard to manage. The are very few holes in this feeder and they are tiny, so nothing at all spills out. There are also no horizontal surfaces to collect bird droppings, so it stays looking neat. I’m 100% thrilled with my purchase, which was less than 1/4 the price of the mesh feeder!

Very good

Long time arriving but very good