Keilamarie, Now that's a suet feeder!! Short of building one myself (it's not patent pending is it? :), you did give me a good idea. I think you're right about the back feet. I was watching one of the little bastards on the suet this morning (I forgot to put out peanuts) and he was clinging on with his back feet and holding the suet basket with both front paws while he chewed away at the corners of the suet. Seeing your contraption made me realize that if I cover the sides of the suet basket with something (strips of wood perhaps), they won't be able to get a mouthful since it appears that they actually chew around the corner bars. I actually have a suet basket hanging from the trunk of my maple in the front yard just outside one of the upper windows. After scaring the squirrel away, I went and threw some cayenne pepper on the suet cake. My neighbours can't see the basket since it's on the house side of the tree, so I'm sure if anyone saw me it will be dinner table discussion tonight. "Honey, the new neighbour was sprinkling red powder on the tree again!!?? And he was talking to himself...he looked mad."

Lucky for me starlings are only an occasional problem in my yard. Hordes fly in, stay a week or so and vanish. When they come I use a recycled recycled plastic upside-down feeder like this: (from Suet Bird Feeders) I am loving the recycled plastic over wood, it's so easy to clean and you can even use bleach against mold. Don't think I haven't done a load of bird feeders in my dishwasher. BUT it's not perfectly starling proof - one starling will always figure it out. As an alternative I have a ground table feeder for starlings like this one: from Ground Table Bird Feeders. I use super cheap chicken feed cracked corn (was about $6 for a 50lb bag) and a super cheap millet/milo seed blend ($6 a 25lb bah) that I buy at a local feed store. The ground feeder is a lot easier for the starlings to use, plus they seem to prefer the corn food, so it at least keeps them busy and out of my other bird feeders to a great extent. They don't go through my pricey seed as fast. I've found offering starlings and grackle sort of birds alternative food works pretty well since they are going to be there no matter what I do. Jays also like the ground table.

I have 3 suet feeder one for peanuts one for suet just peanuts butter suet here is a picture of one of them the squirrel come often in the day time and takes the peanuts

I have an excellent book which someone gave me called "The Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher Birdfeeders and bird Gardens" by Robert Burton & Stephen W. Kress, published by the Audubon Society on Thunder Bay Press. (ISBN 1-57145-186-2) Not only does this book have excellent pictures of birds, it has dozens of plans on how to make bird feeders, nesting boxes, bird baths and how to plant a landscape garden to attract birds. There is one whole chapter devoted to bird feeds and what birds they will attract. In addition to the common seeds and suet mixes they have a long list of table scraps that are great for attracting birds. They suggest making a wire cage and put your meat scraps in it, especially the fats that your trim off cooked hams or beef in addition to ham bones, beef marrow bones and even teh leftover turkey bones. A few other things that i found interesting was cooked spaghetti, cooked rice, uncooked pastry dough, baked potatoes with the skin on and stale cheese. Out of curiosity I baked a potato in the microwave, then sliced it in half and put it on my shelf feeder. It was a big hit with all the birds. Another thing that the birds here seem to like is orange peels. I saw a Blue jay pick up and orange peel that was 1/4 of the orange and fly off with it. If anyone is looking for a great how to book on building bird feeders or bird houses or making their own bird feeds I would highly recommend this one, especially if you are making bird feed because I am a bit skeptical of the health concerns for the birds when i read the recommendations of some books, but I don't think the Audubon Society would steer us wrong.