The Best & The Easiest!
Free bird feeder plans to give a big boost to your backyard bird feeding fun.
Please use any of the free bird feeder plans you find on this site.
There are links to bird feeder plans on this page, that require proper woodworking tools, and others that anyone can make using things from around the home inside and out.
We will begin with the best bird feeders that are homemade from stuff we can find outside.
What Materials Are Available Outside To Use for Making A Bird Feeder?
(Don’t worry if you like to buy boards from the lumber store and use woodworking tools. There are free bird feeder plans further down this page for you too!)
Raw materials just waiting to be picked up!
- branches and twigs of all sizes
- pine cones
- bark
- coconut shells (if you live in the right climate)
- dried reads or thick grasses
- logs or large branches
- stones
- grapevines
What Household Items Can Be Used For Up-cycling Into A Bird Feeder?
Let your imagination free!
- all plastic bottles, pop, water, juice, milk, syrup
- cartons that milk and juice are sold in, and some dry goods as well.
- foil and plastic plates and containers of all sizes and shapes.
- glass bottles.
For Perches Use
- skewers – wooden, plastic, or metal.
- chopsticks
- straws
- wooden, metal or plastic spoons
1. – 5. Free Bird Feeder Plans Made From Natural Material
Plastic Bottle Free Bird Feeder Plans
6. Plastic Bottle Seed Bird Feeder
The first feeder uses 7 plastic bottles.
The feeding ports are the tops cut off the main body of the bottle.
The bottle bodies can be turned over onto a pot of dirt to be used to create a mini-greenhouse for starting seed or for rooting cuttings.
7. Jelly & Fruit Feeder Plan
The next feeder I made to attract Baltimore Orioles and it did not disappoint!
They especially loved the strawberry jam I spooned into the black entre dish.
The wood skewers hold the jelly dish in place to keep it from sliding.
This was an easy, quick feeder to make.
8. Glass Bottle Seed Bird Feeder
The next feeder uses a glass jar with a bright red lid.
The lid is glued to the wood platform tray, holes are cut out to allow a small amount of seed to spill onto the tray.
When it is time to refill the feeder, turn the whole thing upside-down, unscrew the glass bottle from the lid, fill with seed, then place the lid which is attached to the tray back on the glass seed holder and tighten it up.
9. Rustic Log Bird Feeder
- Choose a suitable log section, preferably one that is hollowed out already.
- Consider the length & how heavy it will be.
- Hollow out the log or clean out any rotting wood.
- Cut out a section that is less than 1/4 the circumference of the log.
10. Free DIY Windowsill Bird Feeder
This DIY windowsill bird feeder has all the benefits that a window bird feeder has that attaches to your window with suction cups, for an exciting close-up look at our beautiful birds.
Two Free Woodpecker Feeder Plans
11. Georges Woodpecker Suet Feeder
This DIY suet feeder is very simple to make and very practical for wild birds to eat especially the clinging birds like Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Chickadees, and Titmouse.
12. Suet Log for Woodpeckers
This is also a simple to make a bird feeder, a Woodpecker Suet Log that many backyard birds will love to cling to and enjoy.
13. Ice Bowl Feeder
A unique style of feeder that will add a lot of interest to winter bird feeding. The Ice Bowl Feeder is also very easy to make with very simple items that you will have around the house.
Share Your Bird Feeder Plans!
Have you made a bird feeder of your own design?
Please consider sharing it with everyone.
If you have pictures, you can upload 4 into the form and if you have more than four, then start a new form and upload the rest.
You can do this as many times as needs are, to get all your photo’s in.
If you have a video that you made showing how you made your feeder, then please contact me through the contact form on the site and I will instruct how to share your video.
Thank you in advance for sharing!
What Are Food Shelters?
Food shelter was a common term for bird feeder used over 100 years ago.
The following is an excerpt from a book published in the early 1900s with plans for building birdhouses and “food shelters”.
The book offered free birdhouse building plans and free bird feeder plans.
I found it very interesting in the manner it was written and thought you might enjoy this excerpt.
Food Shelters
Food shelters become centers of interest in proportion to the number of birds attracted to them.
The kind of food placed there determines in time the kind of birds that will be found frequenting them.
Seed-eating birds are readily attracted by the use of small grains such as oats and wheat.
However, every farmer finds a number of weed seeds upon cleaning his seed grain, which proves very acceptable to chickadees and blue jays.
Bread crusts or crumbs, crackers, and doughnuts may be placed in the food shelter with the knowledge that the birds will eat them.
For those of the city who would need to buy seeds, it will be just as well to get hemp, millet, canary seed, and sunflower seed, together with the small grains and cracked corn for foods.
Suet, scraps of meat, and various vegetable scraps, such as celery, lettuce, apples, raisins, and the berries of various bushes, if they can be obtained, are relished.
Bluebirds seem fond of mealworms such as develop in old cereals.
All birds require water and frequently suffer because this is not to be had.
If it is possible to meet this need a great service is rendered.
Finally, when the ground is snow-covered, many birds appreciate a supply of sand and finely ground poultry grit.
Many birds are lost each winter because of insufficient food during inclement weather, that if cared for would remain near neighbors in the summer to wage war upon insect pests.
Excerpt from: Bird Houses Boys Can Build, by Albert F. Siepert
I hope you enjoy making your own bird feeders from this list of Free Bird Feeder Plans!