Suet, Seed Block Feeders Bird Watcher Supply
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Suet feeders are small, box like wire cages which hold suet cakes. The wire cages are easy for clinging birds to land on and feed, but other perching birds usually can not. A must to attract woodpeckers and nuthatches!
Suet Bird Feeders
Suet and seed block feeders are small, box like wire cages in which you to put a formed block seed, or suet cakes, plugs or balls. Some hopper bird feeders also havewire holders on either end of the feeder to place suet cakes, allowing you to keep your bird feeding station in one area. The wire cages are easy for clinging birds to land on and feed, but other perching birds usually can not. If you wish to attract woodpeckers and nuthatches to your garden, suet does the trick. You may also create homemade suet feeders by packing the suet mixture into the crevices of large pine cones, holes frilled in a log which you hang, or offer crumbled suet on a platform bird feeders.
Always locate your suet feeder in as much shade as possible in order to help it from spoiling as quickly.
Do not use nylon bags such as onions come in. Bird feet can tangle in these easily and cut them badly.
Suet attracts downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, red bellied woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers, flickers, nuthatches, wrens, creepers and many other birds. Even though bluebirds prefer insects, mealworms and berries, they may be interested in a peanut butter or berry suet mixtures. Most often this is during the winter when temperatures go below <40°F or after the first freeze, when insects become inactive, or early spring. Bluebirds seem to prefer suet crumbled into small lumps.
You can purchase pre-made suet cakes, plugs, nuggets and spreads, or make your own homemade recipe. Making your own suet is always fun to try!
Suet recipes:
We make our own suet and have found that the birds love it. Peanut butter suet recipes have always been the most sucessful for us along with insect suets but we haven't been brave enough to collect a few thousand bugs to make our own, so we purchase that (we have great luck with the insect spread). We have used dried mealworms and it was a big hit. Experiment with suet types! We've found that it depends on the time of the year as to which does best. Some months it is fruits, sometimes bugs.
There is controversy as to crisco vs lard, so please do research and decide for yourself if you wish to use crisco. We live in the deep south, lard is not an option for us. It spoils within hours even in the winter. In the rare occasion we have colder temperatures we will put out lard. When we lived in the extreme north we used lard.
Also, we have seen the same suet recipe where people melt the crisco and peanut butter. We don’t do this, but just basically mix the stuff up until it’s a texture which can be easily made into patty shapes. You may or may not want to melt the mix together.
Our favorite recipe:
1 Cup Chunky Peanut Butter
2 Cups Cornmeal
2 Cups Quick Cook Oats
1 Cup Lard or Crisco
1 Cup White Flour
Mix it all up and form cakes. We make a large batch, make patties out of it, wrap the extras in cellophane and store in the freezer. You can add other ingredients for variety and test what birds like. Often we add raisins to the mix, or cranberries.
This is a list of ingredients we have heard used in suet bird food mixtures. You can try any dried fruit and mix it in.
Cat food (canned or dry)
Dog food (canned or dry)
Raisins
Chopped dried fruit
Dried coconut
Dehydrated bananas
Dehydrated insects
Dried cranberries
Dried elderberries
Wild berries
Bakery products (bread, buns, donuts, cookies, crackers)
Cornmeal
Chopped corn
Oatmeal
Oats
Millet
Various Seed Mixes
Ground bone - bone meal or cuttlebone
Chopped nuts
Sunflower seeds shelled
Other shelled seeds
Also,
Dried crushed egg shells
Sand
which provide wild birds calcium from the egg shells, while sand will provide and grit for. Both can be difficult for wild birds to find during the winter in snowy regions.