If you want to make a these in summer you'll need to use a fat like suet that remains solid at higher temperatures. Keep in mind that since many household fats like coconut oil or bacon grease soften above room temperature, they are best used in winter. Fresh stuff will cause the suet cakes to go rancid. Well, except fresh foods like fruits or vegetables. If you add something dry like oats, cornmeal or wheat germ you'll want to add a little extra fat to help it all stick.Īs long as you have enough melted fat to stick it all together, pretty much anything goes. You could even add in some oats, corn meal, dried fruit or wheat germ if you have it. You can use only one type of seed if that's all you have on hand. You can leave out the mealworms or use peanuts or other nuts the local birds like. I don't often add peanut butter because it seems to attract squirrels, although woodpeckers do like it. EX: 1 Tbsp of peanut butter & 2 Tbsp of cornmeal. If I do this I offset the stickiness of the peanut butter by adding in some oats or cornmeal using a 1 to 2 ratio. You can add peanut butter to your suet cake mix. I used the wild bird seed variety, but you can buy specific seeds if you have finches, woodpeckers or other types of local birds that you'd like to attract. I had them on hand because my chickens love them. I added a little bit of mealworms for the protein content and because all the birds seem to love them. I used 1 cup of scratch grains for the cracked corn content and 1 cup of regular wild bird seed. Ingredients 2 cups Seeds: scratch grains (sold as chicken scratch), black oil sunflower seeds, mixed wild bird seed, cracked corn, millet etc.ġ cup lard, or y ou can use coconut oil or bacon grease during winter. You can skip this step, but it will be more difficult to get out. Prep: Line a baking pan with saran wrap to make it easier to remove the suet when it's finished. Combined with bird seed, suet or lard makes an excellent winter food for wild birds! If you can find suet then feel free to use that, but many grocery stores don't carry it.so you'll probably need to use lard. Lard is any fat rendered from pigs and most stores carry it in little tubs. Plain suet is kind of hard to find around here so I use lard. Suet is the hard white fat on the kidneys and loins of cattle, sheep, and other animals. I had several types of seeds and some mealworms on hand so I used all of them, but whatever you have will work! I whipped up a quick batch of suet cakes so I could take some pics for you. Oh, and you'll need a baking pan and a refrigerator if you want to speed things up.Įven though this recipe starts out super simple, you can totally customize it! Add peanuts, dried fruit, oats or whatever kind of seed your local birds like. These are about the easiest suet blocks you can make and you really only need 2 ingredients: seeds and fat. The birds around here don't like to eat the cheap ones, believe me I have tried! I started making my own suet blocks since finding ones that were good quality and affordable was becoming more difficult. Once type likes millet, another prefers sunflower seeds, the squirrels try to steal it all *sigh*. Especially if you want to put out food for several types of birds.
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