A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Homemade Suet Cakes

Thanks for the step by step Cindy. Yours look a LOT better than what I got from the store which looks like more shortening than good food. Will be making my own from now on since instead of Lola, I have kids leftovers to add to the mix. I bet I could just store their crumbs in a baggie until I am ready.

Thank you so much for the recipe and step by step!

wow- what a mix those birdies get- no wonder they come every day! so i can use just regular old shortening that's melted??

what do you put out in summer? i don't put suet out in summer because it will melt and get yucky. last summer i actually put orange and apple pieces in the cage in hopes that some birdies mike like it but none ever ate from it. it got mildewed before they ate. any other suggestions for summer??

That's what I use, and if I have some bacon drippings I save that for the suet cakes and add it, too.


I haven't had a problem with it melting, even on the hottest summer days. But, it really doesn't have much of a chance to melt...the birds eat it so fast. I have gone through 4 cakes today already, and the feeders are empty again. My crow "Whiskey Man" attacks his cake as soon as I go out with it...he can't even hardly wait for me to get it in the holder. He's pretty much a pig.

WOW Cindy, No birds have found mine yet. How close to the house and where people walk in and out are yours?

I keep my suet cakes in a weeping willow tree about 20 feet from my front door.

I only have one tree, and it is right next to my front door.

oh yea! I almost forgot about this...we have like 10 bags of that microwaveable popcorn in the cabinet that nobody likes and it's a spicy cajun butter kind or something like that...can I use that? oh! and there's some stale barbque pork rinds in the cabinet too...can I use those?

Popcorn would be OK if it is popped. Here is a picture of a commercially made suet cake in one of my suet feeders. You can see where the Northern Mockingbirds, European Starlings, Carolina Chickadees, and Carolina Wrens have been chowing down on it.

SUET FEEDER WITH SUET

Yep...make sure you pop the popcorn.
I put popped corn in my cakes a lot.
I'd crush those pork rinds up and add them, too. I use everything in my cakes...old cereal (they love cheerios and corn flakes!), all the leftover bread, rolls and cornbread, old crackers, potato chips, etc. I wash all my eggshells and crush them up for the cakes. Lots of time I add a big scoop or two of peanut butter to the shortening when I'm melting it.

I bought some store bought cakes a few months ago because I needed some more of the plastic containers, and the birds would NOT eat them. I finally had to get them out of the suet feeders and melt them in a batch of homemade cakes.

Can I ask a question here??

Are the birds supposed to get things with
SALT in them??????

Actually we were discussing that subject on Birdersworld.com the other day. Several birds have been seen feeding off livestock salt blocks in pastures and some of us have considered hanging out small salt spools like you buy for rabbits around feeders. I'll have to give that a try and see what happens.

Hello
First time post for me.
I had an idea to share from a combo of postings I read on this topic here today.

Would it be worth trying to form the suet in an ice tray with string placed halfway in the cube to hang for the smaller birds?

Just a thought.

Hi, MLP.....
Welcome to the forum!

That sounds like it would work!
Just make sure you have it tied so the little birds have a place to perch while they're eating it. Or, maybe put the string all the way through, coming out on both sides, so you can tie it right to a limb that they can perch on and eat it.

I think I'll try that...I have a bunch of old ice trays.
My pet/wild crow will probably eat it in one bite, though!

You might have to spray the ice cube tray
with a little bit of pam or something,
so they slide out... ????? ?????

Erm Weezie, suet, like PAM is fat and oil based.

Here is a site they brought up the other day on the forum at birdersworld.com about making suet cakes out of vegetable shortening.

VEGETABLE SHORTENING SUET

This is a great site and very informative! Thanks for posting this.

i haven't made suet cakes, but i know when i put things in ice trays, if i let them harden, they pop out easier than ice does.

Thanks for the welcome.

I had ment to include the idea of the string going all the way through it, or depending on how you can hang it, double up the string putting the loose ends free to tie off at time of hanging.
It would depend on if "all the way through" makes it break up quicker than "double up".
My next suggestion on the same line came to me while in the store, how about for the large spaces to make them in a cupcake size.

The Startlings have beeneating ALL the suet. I hear them outside my bedroom morning whistling and squeaking away as they gobble my precious. precious suet! And they went through 50 pounds of black oil sunflower seed in about a month!

I hung out my first suet cake a few weeks ago, but it was gone a couple of days later. The suet feeder was hanging wide open, so I think a squirrel got it.

They're calling for colder weather for at least the next week now, so I think I'll try again. I'm going to use twist-ties on the suet feeder to try to foil the squirrels though.

Raccoons love suet too. They could be out & about with this warm spell.

i should have asked a question. what about dry catfood? could i add it to the cakes?

I had a huge bag of dog biscuits after Freckles died...and ground them up in the blender and used them in my cakes. I use everything and anything.