Would anyone out there know how to make homemade suet? We have lots of beautiful birds around in the winter and we try to keep them happy. Thanks.
Barb from Mountaindale, NY
I used to boil a little water and then melt 1 cup crisco shortening in it and then stir in 1 cup sugar and enough oats to make it thick. Then I would cool it a little and put it out on the fence in a margarine container.......:)
Here is a website that has other recipes for suet:
Most of their recipes add peanut butter and cornmeal and flour. I never added those but it could be a great idea to do that. When I would put the suet out in a margarine bowl attached to the fence, then all the wild animals would come up from the neighborhood, possums and all, they all expected it at a certain time...remember if you start feeding them in the winter to keep it up because they will be expectiug that as a source of nutrition....
I think they just like the suet itself. Be cautious of peanut butters or bacon fat, as they contain a lot of salt, and can put the birds into a premature moult. That can be deadly to them in the winter.
Suet is beef fat, so you can't really "make" your own. You can get it from a butcher and then use it as is, or melt it with seeds and such to make suet cakes for the birds. Butchers also sell it to make Christmas puddings, but most people don't bother with this any more, and use an alternate source of fat. I think the idea of feeding suet to the birds came from years ago when people had access to it because of doing their own butchering. It is not as popular as pork or bacon fat for cooking, and so was an "extra" thrifty, low cost thing that one could use to feed the birds.
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Tip: Bird Feeder Suet Recipe
Archived on 10/25/2008
Bird feeder suet recipes and tips from the ThriftyFun community.
Bird Feeder Suet Recipe
Here is a recipe I found online. It looks easy and I plan to try it myself.
Not-So-Sloppy Summer Suet
4 cups cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup shortening
Combine all the ingredients; mix well. Put in an onion bag or suet feeder, or pack in pine cones or into the bark of trees. Then watch the birds enjoy this hearty feast.
* From Birds and Blooms newsletter, July 2006
By Kathy
Corn Meal and Peanut Butter
Mix corn meal and peanut butter together and form it in suet holders that you recycle. I do this all the time, and the birds love it, even better than the store bought one, they seem to like them better too.
By Rosa
Any Kind Of Nuts Will Add Protein
The peanut butter is for added protein, so you can use any type of nut butters (almond, cashew, etc.), or make your own. You could also use sunflower or pumpkin seed butters, or try millet, flax or sesame seed butters. The birds won't mind.
I don't make my own suet cakes, but our Kroger store sells some for 69¢, and I use them all summer. I store them in the fridge, but even in the hottest months they don't melt and fall apart, but they do get softer in the heat of summer. I was going to try making my own, but for the price, I just buy Kroger's. I do know that you have to use Beef Suet, it doesn't melt as easily as the fat you trim off steaks and roasts. But that means you have to find a butcher to supply you with Suet.
