This is a silly question, but buying bags of black oil sunflower seed is so expensive, why can't I grow my own? I have lots of space for sunflowers but I don't know which kind produce the higher oil content black seeds. I'd like to let the birds just take them straight from the plant, but I also would want to cover a few heads with fine netting so I could save them for my chickens in the winter. Anyone here do this? Thanks!

edited to ask; can I germinate the seeds in the store bought bags meant as bird seed?

don't see why they wouldn't germinate in the right environment. The problem I see is the seeds being protected from the bugs and rodents long enough to ripen. I would think Chemical solutions would be out of the question, at least after a certain point. We all love butterflies, but they lay eggs that turn into caterpillars/worms, some of which tend to grow and eat the seeds. I'm sure the commercial growers have some sort of solution to the problem, but volume and timing are the only ones I can think of. I'm sure the birds won't mind the wormy seed, if you can get it to that point.

I grow sunflowers , or should I say sunflowers volunteer all over my gardens.
the birds help themselves but I don't think all the birds can easily access the seeds. I mostly see the golden finches testing the heads early, and by winter all the seeds have been eaten
When I feed in the feeders many more birds get the seeds especially the cardinals and woodpeckers.

Don't know what type sunflowers these are I snatched a few seeds from the edge of a corn field some 20 years ago. I don't save seed, nature seems to do it's thing and the ones that self sow are always bigger and more robust than any others I have tried to grow from seed.

Cindy, people on the Reddit gardening forums say they get volunteer sunflowers in their yards underneath on near their bird feeders and in their compost piles all the time. So clearly they germinate easily. Just take some from the next bag of the variety you wish when you buy it, plant a few in soil and water well. I'm certain they will come up in the Spring.