A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Bird suet

anyone make suet for their birdie buddies?
good any good ones?>

http://www.birdnature.com/suet.html

I'm doing some freezer ones up for use this winter for my critters.I'm doing zesty berry,but useing almonds& sunflowers,raisons,and what walnuts find under clothes line.I've seen the squirrl there so they must be also.

I make suet cakes every single day!
At 6 o'clock this morning I was making suet cakes!

I go through 12 cakes a day now, so at $1.00 each, it would cost me $360. a month for store-bought cakes. I can make them for about 15 cents each, depending on what I put in them. So, I only spend about $55. a month instead of $360.! Andy has never complained about the cost of my bird-feeding habit (I go through at least 50 lbs. of seed a week!), but I don't think he would support my habit if it cost him $360. a month!

Actually, he doesn't really realize how much I spend on bird food, because I can buy a lot of things at the grocery store (extra apples, peanut butter, lard, oatmeal, etc.) that he doesn't know is for my suet cakes. (Yes, a little bit of deception going on here, and NO, I don't feel guilty about it! )

I use the plastic containers that the store-bought cakes come in for molds for the cakes I make. When they are frozen, I pop them out of the containers and wrap them in plastic wrap. I keep some store-bought cakes in the fridge in case I run out of homemade cakes, but whenever I have to put one of those out, the birds don't eat much of it because they (the birds) are SPOILED and would rather have the homemade ones.

I make EXTRA-special cakes for my crow, and if his suet feeder is empty when he comes to eat, he sits outside and screams until I bring a cake!

Cindy
"The Crazy Bird Lady" (every town has one!)

I'm the "Crazy Bird Lady" for Jacksonville!

Cindy, Iknow you posted your recipe for suet cakes,but dummy that I am, I forgot to copy it down. Would you mind posting it again?

Karen

Here's a link for more recipes...
Suet Cakes

...but I never go by a recipe. I get ideas from the recipes, but I use whatever I have.

Lard and shortening instead of rendering suet.
(That would be a JOB!)

I put all my leftover bread, rolls, cornbread, crackers, etc. in a food processor and grind up for cakes.

Cooked rice. It's cheap and birds love it. Holds the cakes together good, too.

Leftover cooked macaroni or spaghetti chopped up.

I added some mushy bananas once when I had them, and the birds LOVED it!

Just put whatever you have in a HUGE bowl and add some flour, cornmeal, bird seed, and melted lard enough to hold it together. Freeze in containers or on baking sheet, and presto! Different cakes every time!

Cindy