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Peanuts are excellent bird food if you buy the right ones. Only use peanuts sold specifically for wild birds and certified aflatoxin-free — a fungal toxin in poor-quality nuts kills birds. Always use a mesh feeder, never a dish of whole nuts, and note that peanuts pause from 1 May to 31 October under current guidance.
Peanuts are one of the highest-energy foods you can offer, taken by tits, greenfinches, woodpeckers, nuthatches and sparrows.
They’re also the garden bird food with the most ways to get it wrong — and two of those ways can kill birds. Worth ten minutes.
The four rules
- Aflatoxin-free, bird-grade only — never supermarket snack nuts
- Mesh feeder always — whole nuts choke chicks
- Never salted, roasted or dry-roasted
- Seasonal: 1 November to 30 April under current RSPB guidance
Aflatoxin — the serious one
The reason “just use ordinary peanuts” is bad advice.
Aflatoxin is a toxin produced by Aspergillus moulds, which grow on peanuts that have been stored damp or warm. It’s a potent liver toxin and it’s lethal to birds at levels far below what would affect a human.
You can’t see it, smell it or taste it. A contaminated nut looks entirely normal.
Peanuts sold for human consumption are tested against human safety thresholds. Peanuts sold for wild birds by reputable suppliers are batch-tested against the much stricter thresholds birds need.
Only buy peanuts explicitly sold as bird food from a reputable supplier, stating they’re aflatoxin-tested or aflatoxin-free.
Never use peanuts from a supermarket food aisle, a pet shop bulk bin with no provenance, or an unbranded sack from a market stall. The saving isn’t worth it.
Storage matters too. Even good peanuts develop mould if stored damp. Keep them in a sealed metal bin in a cool dry place, buy quantities you’ll use within a season, and bin anything that smells musty, looks discoloured, or has visible mould. If in doubt, throw it out.
Whole peanuts and chicks
The second serious risk, and it’s seasonal.
Adult birds feeding chicks will carry whole peanuts back to the nest. A whole peanut is too large for a nestling to swallow and can choke it.
This is exactly why peanuts should always go in a mesh feeder — the mesh forces birds to peck off fragments rather than take the nut whole.
Never put whole peanuts out loose in a dish, on the ground, or on any flat surface, particularly between spring and late summer.
If you want to feed at ground level, use peanut granules or kibbled peanuts, which are already broken small.
Check the mesh size
Mesh should be roughly 6mm — small enough that whole nuts can’t be pulled through, large enough that birds can peck fragments.
Avoid very fine mesh, which birds struggle with, and avoid any feeder with sharp cut wire ends, which can damage eyes and beaks. Plastic mesh degrades in sunlight and becomes brittle; metal lasts.
Salted, roasted and flavoured — never
Birds cannot process salt, and quantities we’d consider trivial cause serious harm to a bird weighing a few grams.
That rules out: salted peanuts, dry-roasted peanuts, honey-roasted, flavoured, and anything from a snack packet. Roasting alone also alters the fats and reduces the nutritional value.
Plain, raw, bird-grade only.
The seasonal question
Current RSPB guidance, revised in April 2026, recommends pausing seeds and peanuts between 1 May and 31 October, while suet, fat balls and mealworms stay fine year-round.
The reasoning is that disease risk peaks roughly July to October, and natural food is most abundant through those months.
So peanuts are a winter food under current guidance — 1 November to 30 April.
Worth knowing this is genuinely contested. Several independent UK bird food retailers have publicly disagreed with the pause, and their central objection is reasonable: it covers the entire breeding season, when parent birds are working hardest. The RSPB acknowledges gaps in the evidence and says it will monitor and may refine the advice.
Our seasonal feeding guide sets out both positions properly so you can decide.
Who eats them
| Species | How they take them |
|---|---|
| Blue tit, great tit, coal tit | Cling to the mesh and peck fragments |
| Greenfinch | Historically their favourite food |
| Great spotted woodpecker | Hammer at the mesh — the classic peanut feeder visitor |
| Nuthatch | Take fragments and cache them in bark |
| House sparrow | Readily, usually in groups |
| Starling | Will dominate a feeder if they can reach it |
| Robin, dunnock, blackbird | Only granules at ground level — they can’t use mesh |
If a peanut feeder is being emptied by starlings or squirrels, a caged version excludes both. Bear in mind a cage also shuts out woodpeckers, so running one uncaged feeder alongside is worth doing.
Hygiene
Peanut feeders need the same weekly clean as everything else, and they’re more awkward than most — mesh traps damp fragments that go mouldy.
- Empty completely each week rather than topping up
- Scrub the mesh with a brush, hot soapy water and a non-toxic disinfectant
- Dry fully before refilling — damp peanuts are exactly how Aspergillus grows
- Move the feeder to a fresh spot after each clean
- Never top up over old stock. Old nuts at the bottom sit damp for weeks
Our cleaning guide covers the method.
Are they worth it?
Honest answer: peanuts are excellent, but sunflower hearts are the better default if you’re only buying one thing.
Hearts are taken by a wider range of species, need no special feeder, create almost no ground waste, carry no aflatoxin concern and no choking risk. Peanuts are a good second food, particularly if you want woodpeckers and nuthatches.
Common questions
Can I use supermarket peanuts?
No. They’re tested against human safety thresholds, not the much stricter levels birds need. Only bird-grade, aflatoxin-tested nuts.
Can I put peanuts in a normal seed feeder?
No — the ports let whole nuts out, which is the choking risk. Mesh only, or use peanut granules in a standard feeder.
Are peanut butter and peanuts the same for birds?
Not quite. Plain, unsalted, sugar-free peanut butter is generally considered acceptable in small amounts, smeared into bark or a log. Most supermarket peanut butter contains salt and sugar and isn’t suitable.
How do I know if peanuts have gone off?
Musty or sharp smell, discolouration, visible mould, or clumping. Aflatoxin isn’t visible, which is exactly why buying tested stock and storing it dry matters more than inspecting it.
Can I feed peanuts in summer?
Current guidance says pause from 1 May to 31 October. If you choose to continue, use a mesh feeder without exception, offer small amounts, and clean weekly.
Do squirrels take them?
Enthusiastically. A metal mesh feeder with a baffle, or a weight-activated design, is the answer — see our squirrel guide.
Related guides
- Best bird food for winter: what to put out and what to skip
- When to feed garden birds: the new UK guidance explained
- How to attract great spotted woodpeckers to your garden
- How to clean a bird feeder — and why it now matters more
Sources: RSPB guidance on peanuts, aflatoxin and feeder types; RSPB feeding guidance (April 2026); British Trust for Ornithology; Garden Wildlife Health.
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