Suet

[mollymadethis]

Can I feed the girls suet in suet bag? Or is it too fatty?

 

[ranchhand]

I feed suet in the winter, when a little fat is helpful for keeping warm. I started making my own, which really cuts the cost down.

 

[annie3001]

how do you make your own?

 

[txchickie]

I buy the peanut suet and the sunflower suet at TSC. I have those little square metal feeders for the suet. I buy 4 a week at $.99 cents each. My marans and EE's are the only ones that get them, as they do not free-range.

 

[Bettacreek]

You could use bacon grease if I'm thinking right. Just cook bacon, gently pour the grease into a jar with warm water and then allow to cool. You'll have hard bacon fat floating on the top. The water helps you to remove it from the container and it helps because the meat will sink to the bottom. Otherwise, buy fat/tallow from the butcher (or get it from a friend, whatever), slice or chunk it and cook it like you would bacon, and again, drain it like the bacon. Then, you can melt it again (put the solid fat in a jar, put the jar in a pot of hot water and heat the water until the fat melts) and mix it and bird seed together and put it into a mold. You could use those little tupperware containers, a suet shrink wrap thing from the packaging, or you could put it into a cake pan and just cut it into squares.

 

[LynneP]

I feed it- sometimes the pelleted kind from the meat store, in which case I use a little peanut butter for glue and mix wild bird seed or dried berries and raisins in it. I also use wild bird suet in those little cakes. It's really good for building feathercoat during and after a moult and for giving the birds calories in cold weather.

 

[Scoot58]

I just logged on to ask this same question. My girls found the suet on my deck that I just put out for the woodpeckers. I will by more for them.

 

[ranchhand]

I make suet like I cook for us- no measuring!

But I start by melting two 1-lb. tubs of lard. You can add bacon or any other grease you have hanging around.
Then start pitching things in:
bird seed
scratch grains
crunchy peanut butter
cornmeal
grit
anything they'll like!

Let it cool a while, then pour into a waxed cardboard carton, like for milk or OJ. Refrigerate until it sets up firmly, then slice with a serrated knife and peel off the cardboard. I put wax paper between each slice and store in a ziptop bag in the freezer.

I made some holders out of chicken wire scraps. Wild birds love them too!