Fact or Fiction: Never Feed Rice To Birds - Cole's Wild Bird Products (2024)

Thank you for all the terrific info. Great site!

Hi, I would like to know if it is ok for pidgeons, doves, birds can eat raw, uncooked white rice? I also wonder if there is nutritional value in the rice for birds, at all even a bit..
I hope for an answer! And thank you, in advance.

Logic tells us that organic foods are better for us. Why? Because the pesticides we use today are based on the nerve gases developed during World War I (and washing non-organically grown will at best remove about 1/3 of pesticide residues). So when you eat non-organically grown crops, you are in effect literally eating something that is designed to kill you.

GMO food making people sick…uh-huh. Every fruit and vegetable we eat has been genetically modified. Genetic modification happens all the time by sheer random chance; welcome to planet Earth. This kind of idiotic pseudoscience is everywhere and if anything is making people sick, it’s stress caused by needless worry, anti-vaxxers, avoiders of modern medical science and the like.

Oh yeah,,,That applies to GMO rice or wheat or corn etc

ducks and geese eat rice all of the time. Just watch them in a field of recently harvested rice. the same goes for corn or wheat ir barley or millet. …

The comment about not feeding bread is born of ignorance. The main benefit of GMO is that it allows the crop to self protect itself from pests, fungus, etc. By doing this the farmer uses much less pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. So you can eat GMO crops which have been engineered to resist harm, or you can eat those crops which are covered in poisons to protect them.

I have eleven healthy happy budgies and I never give them rice. Quinoa is packed with nutrients and a great source of protein, they love it. I include it with their salad, only the organic quinoa!

So…birds can eat any kinds of rice right?

I have some left over cooked rice and was wondering if the birds will eat it. I throw bread to them daily and te come expecting to be fed something…

Many seeds expand when wet and they don’t cause birds problems. Also, the myth goes further back than 1996. In the early 80s, we through bird seed at brides and grooms instead of rice, so as not to harm birds when they ate rice. ?

Understandably, uncooked rice will not reach cooking temperatures in a bird’s stomach, but in an effort to be extra careful, I soaked some white rice in cold water to see if it would swell. It did. It seems then, that when a bird drinks, the rice could become a problem.

I dont understand why I have seen suggestions to feed cheese to birds. Just because they will eat it, does not mean it’s okay to give it to them. Mammals produce and eat dairy…but birds?! I was told many years ago by a wildlife rehabilitationist never to give milk to baby birds. She said that it turns to a concrete in their stomachs and kills them! So how is it okay to give birds other dairy products?

I feed my birds fruit and salad with bird seeds and a little bread and other kitchen left over. They particularly like kiwis apples lettuce mashed potatoes and cheese sauce Thaqey have many a party in my garden. I hope others will give a few party’s!!!

While rice might not kill birds, I wonder if it is as devoid of nutritional value to birds as it is in humans. A full stomach that contains ingested material with little to no nutritional value is not good. Eating a diet of corn and peanuts is not a normal diet for squirrels and is not a healthy diet for them which can ultimately lead to other diseases killing them. Feed our feathered friends bird food.

Rice which is not organic contains high levels of arsenic. Google it. Good reason not to feed it to birds. If its rancid and you wouldn’t eat it then please don’t feed it to wild animals and birds. Thanks on behalf of those you can not speak for themselves.

I needed to know if raw rice was safe for birds.. got my answer here… plus I found out a few other interesting tid bits about birds:: I enjoyed it!

I can not for the life of me figure out why it is any easier to clean up any variety of bird seed than rice. That is preposterous–vacuum it up. Trouble with bird seed is it does germinate in the lawn and shrub areas and then the gardener must deal with that weed.

We once were trying to rescue a baby duck that was orphaned. He looked maybe a few days old… perhaps five inches tall when upright. We didn’t know what they should eat because this was before the internet was around. He gobbled up some bread bits and uncooked white rice, but not tons of it. The baby duckling was dead in the morning. No joke. Maybe older birds have some grit in their gizzard which can digest the stuff? He was not injured or sick before we went to bed that night and was kept warm indoors sleeping in a closed cardboard box of towels for a nest. He had just been swimming around in the bathtub happily before bed, wagging his tail a lot. And was dried off before bed. I’ll refrain from feeding birds uncooked rice because I’ve seen what it *can* do to young birds. Situations like ours might be was caused the “myth” to exist. It’s not always a myth.

/while white rice is stable and can last nearly forever, brown rice still has oil in the brown outside and becomes rancid. When I have old brown rice, rather than cooking it 45 minutes and finding it with a rancid taste, I toss it. I have not given it to birds, thinking it to be harmful.What a waste. Now I know birds
can eat it.