Gardenline Caged Bird Feeder

Last Updated on January 14, 2022

EDITOR’S NOTE: See our update near the end of this post on how the bird feeder has held up over time. 

I’ve bought a few bird feeding supplies from Aldi over the years, including suet and birdseed, and most recently a bird feeding station. Conveniently, the week after the bird feeding station hit store shelves in the spring of 2021, Aldi sold several different types of bird feeders to add to the feeding station, including:

• a caged bird feeder
• a tube bird feeder
• a wooden bird house-style feeder

I bought the caged feeder and the wooden bird house feeder to try. This post deals with the caged feeder.

The Gardenline Caged Bird Feeder cost $9.99 at the time of publication. That’s cheaper than any other caged style of bird feeder we’ve seen on the market.

This is an Aldi Find, which means it’s only in stores for a short time. Aldi does not offer online ordering for its specials, so if you can’t find this in your local store, you’re out of luck.

Features for the caged feeder include:

• a removable roof for easy filling
• 4 feeding ports
• holds up to 0.5 lbs. of bird seed
• resistant to squirrels and large birds
• measures 6.89″ in diameter and is 10.5″ tall
• made in China

You can see one of the grooves on the lower side of the lid in the upper left of this photo. You can also see one of the small notches on the top of the feeder in the background.

To fill this feeder, remove the feeder roof, fill with seed, and place the roof back on. The roof/lid has grooves on the bottom that slide onto a set of two notches near the opening where you pour seed into the feeder. You set the lid on top of the feeder and turn clockwise to lock the lid in place. The lid is attached to the feeder with a small chain so critters can’t carry it off.

The Gardenline Caged Bird Feeder hanging from my Gardenline Bird Feeding Station, also from Aldi.

This feeder seems decent in terms of ease of use and sturdiness, especially considering its low cost. I think the cage shape makes it look cool, too, and it looks like that cage will offer a few more places for smaller birds to perch.

Since I’ve only hung it up today, I haven’t had time to watch the birds use it much, but I’m curious to see how good of a job it does at keeping out the squirrels, starlings, and grackles while allowing in the finches, titmice, and other smaller birds that frequent my feeders.

UPDATE (1/14/2022) — This is a nice little feeder, but it’s not squirrel proof. I’m not really surprised given the fact that the perches and interior tube are plastic. It held up fine when I filled it with safflower seed, which my local squirrels aren’t really interested in.

The squirrels have done a number on my caged bird feeder. The black plastic perch is completely gone from this feeding hole, and the hole itself is at least twice as large as it’s supposed to be, so it spills bird seed. 

However, when my area hardware store was out of safflower seed, I bought a bag of traditional inexpensive mixed bird seed. The squirrels loved it, and they stuck their heads through the cage and chewed off the plastic perches on this feeder to get to the food. They also chewed off a good amount of the clear plastic tube to get to the bird seed. As a result, this feeder now spills seed if I try to fill it above the feeding holes.

My Gardenline Caged Bird Feeder after the squirrels got a hold of it.

This feeder looks nice and works fine, but if you feed anything that squirrels like, I’d recommend adding a squirrel baffle to your feeder pole. Otherwise, you aren’t going to have a functional feeder for long.

The Verdict:

The Gardenline Caged Bird Feeder is easy to use and promises to keep out larger birds and squirrels. We can attest to the fact that it plastic components are not squirrel proof, though, and you may want to put a squirrel baffle on your bird feeder pole to prevent this feeder from getting damaged. Otherwise, it’s a nice way to watch the neighborhood birds.