Description
Kaytee ElectroNectar Concentrate, 16 oz.
KAYTEE® Hummingbird ElectroNectar™ is the first-ever, hydrating energy drink for nature’s tiny acrobats. Naturally clear nectar with electrolytes, just like flowers!
Hummingbirds have enormous endurance and strength for their size. They must eat half their body weight each day by drinking from a 1,000 flowers daily. KAYTEE Hummingbird ElectroNectar is developed to mimic flower nectar with added electrolytes and no added colors.
Why not red?Hummingbirds are attracted to the color of your feeder, not the color of the food.
Behind the Research Our new Electronectar was developed based on 2 years of studies in hummingbird nutritional requirements and flower nectar benefits. We do not use colorants or Sodium benzoate in our commercially available Electronectar. In our studies, we examined the impact of diet on body mass in hummingbirds. Animals were offered 1 of 5 diets, diet A was strictly composed of sugar and water and the other four diets with electrolytes added to the sugar water. We confirmed that Ruby-throated hummingbirds do lose weight when fed sugar water. Change in mass was not different between the electrolyte diet groups. The results of our studies were presented for the first time at the American Ornithologist Union meeting July 2011.
Home made sugar water helps hummingbirds with their sucrose requirements, but is not the proper required nectar. Nectarivorous hummingbirds consume up to 5 times their body mass per day in nectar (McWhorter et al. 2003) but ironically, this exposes them to probable dehydration when consuming solutions that do not contain electrolytes (Bakken and Sabat 2008) Hummingbirds quickly process excess water while drinking, which acts to return body mass to pre-feeding status and reduces the ill-effects of excess circulating water. The hummingbird kidney experiences obligatory losses of electrolytes (Calder and Hiebert 1983). Thus, when hummingbirds do not consume electrolytes in their diet, they will experience a net loss of electrolytes. When the amount of electrolytes in the body drops, the concentration of water in the body will also drop as the body acts to maintain a constant electrolyte concentration. This leads to dehydration and weight loss (Hiebert and Calder 1983).
