In late February I paid $23.95 for a 50-pound bag of black oil sunflower seed. That's 48 cents a pound. That's a good price. You can pay more, no question.
The price of black oil sunflower seed depends on many things, particularly on where you buy it and in what quantity. This has been an economical winter for ius as far as seed is concerned because our bird traffic is way down. Birds eat less, we buy less. Readers tell me they too have feeders with more down time.
There's been a drop in the price of sunflower seed across the country because our odd winter has cut demand in more yards than ours.
We found our good deal at Krause Seeds and Supplies in Hope, Minnesota, about an hour south of the Twin Cities along I-35.
I'll bet you've been paying more than 48 cents a pound for sunflower seed; we have. We bought a bag from Jim Krause even though we had about 70 pounds on hand.
The next day, I made some calls to see what prices one would pay here, in "the cities" as Krause says.
I called three bird-supply stores and a hardware store. The bird-store prices ranged from 68 cents to $1 per pound, in 20- to 40-pound bags. The hardware store price was so high it had wings -- $1.80 per pound. Of course, they're selling 10-pound bags, a convenience for people who don't want or need large bags of seed.
The Krause price was 20 cents per pound cheaper than the best price I found "in the cities". I did speak with one fellow who told me his price was $25 for a 50-pound bag, or 50 cents a pound. Turned out he's a wholesaler.
