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 bird population?

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.

Usually a suet 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.