Suet Bird Feeders
What are the best bird feeders to be used in the winter time?
Of course we all know winter is a tough time for birds.
Many plants have dropped their foilage, flying food
liked insects and crawling food like grubs are hiding for the
winter months, and what food is available is often hidden
under the snow. So what can you do to
help the birds in
winter?
One of the better winter time feeders is a suet bird feeder.
What makes suet a good choice?
Suet has a few advantages for use in the
winter. It holds up to cold weather well. At
temperatures above 70 degrees F it will melt, so don't
leave it out year round. Since it has a large
percentage of fat it has a lot of calories, and is
usually mixed with other high energy foods like peanuts
for additional protein to give an additional energy
boost. Finally suet cakes will last for quite a
while so you don't need to refill the feeder too often.
Suet comes from raw beef or mutton fat, often made from the
fat found around the loins and kidneys. It was a common
material in hundreds of years ago since it found many uses
for the settlers like candle-making. It has to go through a
process called rendering in order to be useful for most
applications. The rendering is a process where the fat
is heated and results in the cooking off of the wax
like material. The result is a wax like material which
can be shaped and used in a variety of ways.
Once you have the raw suet, it is usually prepared in
suet cakes similar in shape and
size to a sandwich. To increase the protein in the
food it's common to add other ingredients like cracked
peanuts which are mixed in before the suet is set so
they are distributed through the block. This
combination results in a high energy food source.
There are many types of commercially available
suet blocks. If you want to make your own you can
find a number of suet recipes targeting different bird
species. Sometimes pepper is added to make
hot pepper suet to repel squirrels and
other pests.
Usually a
suet bird feeder looks like of a small
wire
cage feeder where the suet block is
placed. This may be placed on the trunk of a tree or
suspended from a branch. Another common style is a bird
feeder that has the usual hopper for seed, and has suet
cages on the sides to hold the cakes. Another way
you can use suet it to smear it onto pine cones which
can be hung from a branch.
Birds that are attracted to
suet feeders include woodpeckers,
goldfinches, juncos, cardinals, thrushes, jays,
bluebirds and wrens. Unfortunately they will also
attract starlings, which some folks don't care for.
If you don't want to attract starlings try using a
suet bird feeder with only bottom access, since
starlings can't hang upside down to feed. The
other common problem is squirrels in your feeder.
If you don't have a separate feeder for the
squirrels, you need to make sure the suet feeder cant'
be accessed by climbing or jumping from a nearby tree,
fence or roof. If all else fails, you may have to resort
to using baffles to keep the squirrels away.
Suet bird feeders come in a broad range of styles. There are
simple utilitarian cage feeders that simply hang a brick of
suet from a tree, to decorative suet feeders mounted on a
pole that can be freestanding in your yard. Whatever
choice you make a suet feeder is a great addition to your
back yard birding.