A feeder maker in the Eastern Townships.

Brome Bird Care is a maker of wild bird feeders in Knowlton, Quebec. Knowlton is a village in the Eastern Townships of southern Quebec, and since 1971 it has been part of the Town of Brome Lake, formed when it merged with the Township of Brome and the village of Foster, according to English Wikipedia. The company shares its name with that town and its lake, and its website often shortens it simply to Brome.

The company dates itself to the late 1990s. “Brome has been designing and manufacturing wild bird feeders since 1998,” its website said in 2026; we give 1998 as the company’s own date. Its website, bromebirdcare.com, was online by June 2003, the earliest capture of it in the Internet Archive, and by 2004 it carried lists of dealers arranged by Canadian province.

Its founder is Paul Cote. An archived version of its About page from 2011 described Brome Bird Care, “located in Knowlton, Quebec, Canada,” as “home to the Squirrel Buster™ brand of squirrel proof bird feeders,” led by its founder, Paul Cote, and “supported by an impressive list of patents.” Its team page in 2026 uses almost the same words, and lists Paul L. Cote among its staff, so the founder is still named at the head of the business. The company’s online store puts its nationality plainly: “Canada is home to Brome and to the Squirrel Buster® brand of squirrel proof bird feeders.” Between the two versions the name gained a different symbol — written with ™ in 2011 and with ® in 2026.

Weight, a shroud and a patent trail.

The Squirrel Buster is built around one idea, which the company described in 2011: “When a squirrel lands on a Squirrel Buster, its weight automatically closes the seed ports, denying access to the seed but not harming the squirrels in any way.” The company says every Squirrel Buster works the same way.

The patent record is the clearest dated trail for the brand. Google Patents lists Paul L. Cote as inventor of a United States patent for a bird feeder with a priority date of May 2007, granted in May 2013, and of a design patent for a bird feeder base, filed in October 2010 and granted in January 2012. A tube bird feeder patent followed, granted in July 2013. Later patents name Brome Bird Care Inc. as assignee, among them a bird feeder with a moveable shield, filed in May 2014 and granted in February 2016; a lantern-shaped bird feeder, filed in June 2014 and granted in April 2017; and a connection system for a bird feeder, filed in January 2020 and granted in June 2022. Cote is named as inventor on further grants, including a rotatable locking cover for a hanging feeder, granted in February 2021, and a feeder with an adjustable shroud, granted in September 2021, and on applications published in 2025.

The feeders have drawn independent notice. In February 2012 the gear site Cool Tools published a review by Matthew Perks of the Brome Squirrel Buster, which it described as “made by a company in Canada.” He explained the principle — birds perch and eat, while heavier squirrels “weigh the bottom down and close off the openings” — and noted that the closing pressure could be adjusted to keep out larger birds such as starlings and grackles, and that the feeder carried a lifetime warranty against squirrel damage.

Food, feeders and the garden trade.

The seven brands in this group all make food or feeders for wild birds: Haith’s, Jacobi Jayne, Peckish, Gardman, CJ Wildlife, Droll Yankees and Brome Bird Care. Wild bird care brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger garden or pet groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a garden centre to a hardware store or a mail-order catalogue.

A wild bird care brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a name, a pack and a promise about the birds it is meant for, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its seed or feeders are actually made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packs and marks have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Repair, not replace.

The range carries the Squirrel Buster name across several feeders. Its website in 2026 listed models including the Legacy, Classic, Finch and Mini, alongside seed feeders under the Squirrel Solution name, pole kits under the BirdsUP name and a Raccoon Buster guard. In 2011 its menu showed a shorter list — the Classic, Plus, Finch, Mini and Peanut+.

Much of the brand’s language is about durability. The company calls its approach “Legacy Construction™” and its after-sales service “Lifetime Care™,” which it describes as “how we stand behind our products.” It says “all parts are designed to be replaceable and recyclable,” and in 2011 its About page said its feeders “need never be discarded because of a missing part as spare parts are always available.” We give those as the company’s statements. The company describes itself as designing and manufacturing its feeders.

Brome also publishes about birds as well as feeders. In 2023 the Knowlton paper Tempo Lac Brome reported that the company’s online show, Brome Bird News, was made in Knowlton by Tatsiana Thomson as part of her job as marketing and sales manager for Brome Bird Care, with filming and editing by Rugge Thomson and research supplied by a retired McGill professor.

For a design guide, Brome Bird Care shows how a single mechanism, protected by patents and repeated across a range, can become the brand itself. Compare Droll Yankees, another North American tube-feeder maker, and Gardman, a garden-wildlife brand from Britain. For this guide we use a feeder green, a seed gold and a slate with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Brome Bird Care’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.