My Biz: Shop sells feeders, seed for the seriously addicted birder

Name: Dan Waltz, general manager

Company: Wildlife Habitat

Address: 166 Collins Road NE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 393-4927

Website: www.Wildlifehabitatcr.com

Elevator pitch: “I carry the parts. If I can't fix it for you, you get a new bird feeder.”

CEDAR RAPIDS - Inside the front door of Wildlife Habitat a cork board is tacked full of vibrant photographs of wild turkey, indigo buntings, red poles, blue jays and, yes, even one of a fox dining on a cardinal - all courtesy of Dan Waltz's customers.

“It grows on you,” said Waltz, owner of Wildlife Habitat, his specialty business that sells high quality bird seed, lifetime-warranted birdfeeders and garden art from its retail storefront not only to local customers but also to some 100 dealers nationwide.

“It's also been called a disease,” Waltz joked. “Once you get started, you just can't stop.”

Waltz's first job in the bird seed business began in 1991, when he'd unload semi-loads of seed at the original store site, next door to Nelson's Meat Market on Old Marion Road.

“I've got an electronics background,” Waltz said, “and I was working the second shift at the time, which allowed me to work during the day in the store.”

In 1993 Waltz was laid off and by September of that year he went full time in the bird seed business. When the owner retired in 2007, Waltz purchased the business, moving the store to its current location.

Waltz is particular about what products he sells, noting that there are many differences in bird seed on the market and encourages customers to read the labels.

“The No. 1 thing on sunflower seeds is checking for the amount of fat percentage in the blend,” he explained.

“The higher that number, the better the seed. The more oil, the more fat, the more energy the bird gets.”

He sells sunflower seed that is 38 percent oil.

“There's a lot of 19 to 22 percent stuff being sold that is trashy - with chaff and sticks - and the chickadees are sensitive enough to the density of that seed. If it isn't worth their time to crack it, they'll throw it out and then you have ground mess.”

He discourages against buying seed mixes that include things such as Milo, an inexpensive filler, or hand grains. The Nyjer -  pronounced like Nigeria - seed the store carries has been sterilized through heat treatment, so it can't grow thistles, something farmers appreciate.

Waltz has 22 feeders in his backyard that he fills a couple times a week.

“We sometimes do product testing at home,” he said, “so I always want to keep birds coming so that when I get a new feeder in to test, I have a true way to test it.”

Waltz runs the business with the help from one part-time employee.

“My work day involves everything from taking care of walk-in retail customers with bird-seed needs to keeping the shelves stocked,” he noted, adding that he has to dust all of the time. “This is a bird seed store - it's always dusty.”

At the end of a work day Waltz says he enjoys putting his feet up with a fire in the fireplace, having a cup of coffee and watching the birds outside his own window.