Your bird suet recipes?

Sounds good. Red-bellieds are beautiful to have at the feeders, too.

Cute story about your Grandpa. I can just see him making the Alpo sandwiches!

Yep Clerkie, Your GP was a real sweetie....:^)

Cool, then they are Red-bellied!! Nice birds!

Your GP was a real sweetie!

My GP was one of a kind. He would take care of just about any kind of animal. He liked to watch the birds too. I made adifferent hanger to put my suet in. I was mixing the peanut butter and other ingre. together and thought I could just reuse the peanut butter jars. I ran a wire thru the lid to tie on a limb. I cut holes in the jar then made an x to put small sticks in so the birds could have a perch, The Downwies really like it. I also had a very pretty blue bird come to the feeder yesterday. I am trying to see if the birds like whole oats or not I put some in my thistle feeder seems like they ate out of it. Do the yellow finches turn a dirty bronish yellow in the winter time? Or maybe they are a sparrow they are small birds in the summer that are bright yellow very pretty wondered if they change colors in the winter? Hope everyone has a great day.

Hi clerkie, Yes the American Goldfinch has a winter coat that is a brownish color.

Some don't care for it but I think its rather nice!

Pelle

Thankyou Pelle one of these days I will know the right names for all the birds, but for now I usually say ooooh pretty! LOL

I decided that I needed a softer suet for my log feeder. I wanted something that i could cut in chunks and quickly pop into the holes. So I melted down the suet cakes I had, added some lard, bit 'o' this and that (peanut butter, BOSS, oatmeal, cranberries). The dogs were going crazy for it!

Then I poured it in a sheet pan and let it partially harden. Here's a picture of that. The next step was that I made "logs' the entire length of the pan (I don't have pictures of that). I then let it harden out in the garage the rest of the way. I cut it up into cookie size chunks for the log feeders.

Like others before me report… It looked and smelled good enough to eat. The BOSS looks like chocolate chips. Good thing I don't have kids in the house or they'd probably eat these.

So no real recipe, just started with store-bought cakes and added peanut butter and stuff.

What do your log feeders look like? That gives me all kinds of ideas for feeders. Mine have to be high enough so our dogs can"t get at it they like it as well as the birds!

This is a cedar log that I hang from a shepherd hook. The only bad thing about it is that it is easy access for the Starlings as well. But it is high enough that the dogs leave it alone. They DO eat up the pieces that fall on the ground (ugh!).

Here is a fuller view with one of the "kids."

I can't remember who it is (perhaps 'adelbercat') that has a "trough" log feeder that he puts seed in, with great success.

I will have to try that I think the birds will like it better than a store bought one and the bark provides the perch. I like this very much. Thank you.

Oh, the trough feeder is Frank (f_chisolm)

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=4148318

Thanks for the link. You know I live right in the middle of the woods a person might think this idea would just come natural to me guess I had a duh moment! I can find all kinds of interesting wood close at hand for the feeders. We are getting ice today so I am hoping no trees come down again. Thanks again!

My suet recipe works for woodpeckers especially. Put first two ingredients in large/deep microwave container:
1 lb. - Lard
1/2 lb. - Any kind of peanut butter
Mircowave in 1 minute shots, stirring ea. time until melted. Add rest of ingreds. & stir. Will be thick & lumpy.
1 C - Hulled sunflower seeds
1 C - Corn meal
1/2 C - Oat meal
1 C - Dried fruit - small size ( I sometimes cut up an orange or apple)
Line 4-5 plastic freezer containers w/ plastic wrap. I use the shallow types that are the size of my feeder. Spoon mix into these and refrig over night. Take off plastic wrap, force into feeder (a bit messy so do over newspaper.) Take the others out of the containers and wrap completely in plastic wrap & freeze. I have to hang mine up high because of dogs. I use the same spot because it takes awhile for birds to know it's there. If I let it run out, they again forget the place. I don't feed this in warm weather - only when the weather is cold enough to keep it solid and fresh.

I like the idea of using apples since I just recently saw a post here with a link to a video of a pileated woodpecker eating apples off the tree.

Mrs. Ed... I've been doing the same thing with the store bought stuff...melting it down and adding my own "goo".... although the birds ate the cheapie stuff, they're going crazy over the cakes I melt down, add nuts, fruit etc., to and let reform.
I'm glad you saw the pileated video! When i saw it, I had to post it... crazy, huh, the way he was tearing through that apple!

In order to keep the starlings from my suet, I have done two things that seem to work. The first is to hang the suet feeder horizontally instead of vertically, by changing the chain, and then placing a clear plastic cover over top of the suet feeder. This causes the birds to feed at the suet feeder hanging to the underside, which the starlings are unable to do. The second method is to hang the suet feeder in the normal vertical manner, but it is covered with one of those clear plastic feeder covers that looks like witches hat. I hang the suet feeder as high up into the cover as I can, so the birds have to fly under the cover and up to land on the suet cage. I suppose it discourages the "good" birds a bit, but the woodpeckers seem OK with it after they get used to it. Not only does this save you money for suet, it discourages the non-native birds who often aren't good neighbors for the native birds.

Susan in Minneapolis

Interesting about the starling deterrents Susan. I don't think I've seen the 'witch's hat' feeder covers...I'll have to do a google for them! The starlings have discovered my feeders now and they are driving me crazy!

Good day at the feeders today. A bit of snow cover really brings the birds around.

I'm glad your having success w/ the upside down feeder. I wasn't that lucky.
My Starlings had it figured out in almost no time.

They flap their wings going to the underside then grab on and hang upside down while eating or just keep flapping their wings awkwardly taking bites out.

I have pictures of it somewhere; I'll look tomorrow.

I know, my starlings are similar, they seem to think that they are hummingbirds at my log feeder. Flapping those wings, attempting to hover and eat. Kinda funny to watch.

Susan... Are you talking about the Mandarin Squirrel Baffler? I have one over each feeder... well worth $22 a pop... was the only thing I've found that keeps the buggers off the feeders.

Ah. Here's the description of it: http://www.backyardbirdsdiscoverycenter.com/proddetail.php?prod=AR-154

$22 is 'some bucks'. But a savings if it keeps the squirrels and starlings away from my precious suet!

Yup, tabasco... that's what I have (four of)... over time, they pay for themselves. And they're hard plastic so the squirrels can't chew on 'em and they hang from a metal hook ... I tried one that had a plastic hook... guess how long THAT lasted with the squirrels!

heyitsmej,
Yes, that is what I have, or something quite like it. With squirrels, they could still jump to the suet or feeder from the ground below, but squirrels don't seem interested in my suet (I actually use slices of beef marrow bones inside the suet cage), so I don't have to worry about them. I use the cone primarily to keep the starlings off the suet.

I just went outside to take this picture; the windchill is about -10F, and I see that the cone could use some cleaning, but here it is.

Susan

I use something similar, but I just went to Fleet Farm and bought a large metal funnel (for changing oil on farm equipment). Seems to me it was somewhere around $10.

How do you hang it above your feeders, finch?

I attach a wire to the suet hanger and thread the wire up through the funnel. The top of the funnel had some holes in it and I threaded the wire through a couple of those to keep it a little above the suet feeder (so it didn't completely cover it). Then I make a loop in the wire the hung it up by that.

I use beef suet/tallow that is sold by Columbus Foods for my suet. They make a nice block that is reasonably priced and ships rather inexpensively to at least the midwest. It is a great product.

Hello! I'm new to this site and this forum. I've been putting homemade suet out for a couple of weeks, and am happy to have seen some Downies, some Flickers, and a couple of Bluejays, when I usually only see the finches, sparrows, pigeons and starlings. I haven't tried using Cayenne in my recipe - same as the one listed in this thread. I will though, because the squirrels adore the stuff and I have to figure out how to keep them out of it.

Hi Rhonda, Welcome to the forum!!! Nice photo!

Let us know whether the cayenne pepper works for you in the suet.