I'm reading about making your own suet log, some say to drill the hole all the way through, others say 3/4 of the way through. Which is it?

First off, there is no reason to add oil because Lard is nothing more than rendered hog fat and that is plenty of oil so to speak.

I asked my local ornithologist from the Sate Audubon Society about adding sugar and she laughingly said, "Sugar to taste, although I have never personally tasted it, therefore I don't add sugar".

I am 62 yrs old and I have been making suet since I was about 6yrs old, but to be totally honest, I don't think i ever made it the same way twice in all that time. There is no absolute recipe, it is basically just a simple project of using whatever you happen to have on hand at the time.

In its simplest state you can get raw suet from a butcher and hang that. The fat that you trim off beef or ham, whether raw or cooked is also excellent just as it is. In fact, after thanksgiving I took all the thick fat from the turkey roaster and made a suet cake with that and it worked great, not to mention that last week I took the raw fat we trimmed off a chicken before cooking and put that in one of my suet cages and that went big with the Red Belly Woodpeckers.

When making suet from Lard, begin by warming the lard just enough to soften it to the consistency of peanut butter (Do not liquify it). You then add in bird seed, peanuts, peanut butter, oatmeal, corn meal, stale cookies crumbs, crunched up potato chips, (especially crunched up stale Fritos), diced pieces of orange or grapefruit rinds, dried fruit or what ever else you may have at hand, there is no specific recipe and it you don't have all those ingredients, no problem, just use what you have. One thing that i have found that works very well is raw cranberries, both whole and dice up bits.

Some people prefer to mix it with a spoon or spatula while others such as myself just dive right in an mix it with my bare hands. Here again, there is no right or wrong way.

I have about 6 of the little plastic trays that commercial suet cakes are packed in, and i use them as mold to make my own suet cake to fit my cage type suet feeders.

You can also form the suet into a ball or log then hang it in a net bag such as the ones used to pack oranges or onions.

To make a suet log you just select a piece of dead wood with the bark still on it and use a drill with a 3/4" to 1-1/2" spade bit (whatever you have handy) and drill some holes about 1" deep, then pack the holes with your suet mix.

Some people add little dowels as perches but I find that the desirable birds that we like to attract to the suet feeders, I.E, Woodpeckers, Titmice, Nuthatches and Chicadee's are all very adept at hanging on tree bark, whereas the less desirable birds, such as starlings and Blue Jays have a bit of difficulty at hanging on the bark.

You can store excess suet cakes in the freezer but at my house freezer space is at a premium. I simply put then in metal coffee cans and set then on a shelf in my garden shed, Which at this time of year, is every bit as cold as my freezer. (The metal cans prevent mice form getting into them.)

Thank you for all the valuable information. I melted the lard to a complete liquid. Oops. Hope that doesn't taint it in any way.

Does it make that much difference if I have a log without bark? This was sitting behind our garage in our woodpile, weathered, so most the bark fell off. Do the perches deter the birds I want to attract? (I really don't know what I want to attract, this is new to me).

Now, about the location...

I'm wondering if I can hang this off my back airing porch (our rear entry way, which is technically our main entryway). What are the pros and cons to having the suet feeder next to your entryway? The only other option I have is to either place it in full view of the chicken hawks by my garage, OR hang it from my airing porch but then I have to deal with bird droppings (messy), OR from a branch on my lilac shrub next to my porch, but I read that suet feeders are better in a more open space.

I can swap this out for the cage feeder I have next to my window, but that's hanging from a shepards hook that isn't higher than 5 or 6 feet, easily accessible by squirrels or other animals.

Can anyone comment on my best option?

the fat in lard or shortning or oil or meat drippings is the main ingredient. Birds expend a lot of energy even trying to keep warm in winter and the fats and oils are a quick rich sorce of energy. And the sugar also is quick energy. i use what i have on hand and with oil and drippings i have to add extra cornmeal or grits or old cereal or bread or whatever to thicken the oils so it is not runny and form a paste or cake. i reused the plastic trays from the store suet mixes till they deterioted. and started saving the plastic boxes that raspberrys and blueberrys come in at the grocery stores. half a box makes a mold to form your suet cakes in and they fit the suet cages. i use whatever i have on hand such a peanut butter or old trail mix or dried fruits or nuts or scraps of meat or berrys or stale bread or cereals or old cookies or stale chips to use up the leftovers i have on hand.

Sorry I didn't respond sooner but I have been sitting here thinking over your whole situation before venturing a solution.

First off, rest assured that melting the lard did not harm it n any way. In fact, it would not matter if you cooked with it then saved the drippings. The only reason that we don't liquify it is because it is much easier to work with when its still in a semi paste form and you are less likely to get burned if it at or near room temperature.

I don't know who told you to put suet out in the open but from my experience the birds that are attracted to suet are primarily tree dwellers and prefer to have a moderate cover from larger predators such as the hawk you describe. Keep in mind that hawks are extremely fast but not highly maneuverable. They generally attack from a high perch like a military dive bomber however, just like the airplane they need a good straight line of attack to the quarry and a straight through avenue of escape. If you were to hang your feeder on the shepherds hook close to the side of the house and near the lilac bush the smaller birds could quickly dive into the lilac bush for cover and it would make it very difficult for the hawk to maneuver.

I would not hang the feeder near your back door if that is your primary entrance because every time someone enters or leaves it would scare the birds away and they may be very wary about returning.

However I have thought up one solution that works well for me and may prove to work well for you. Go to a "One Hour Photo" processing shop and ask the attendant to give you some empty 35mm film canisters. Make you suet mix and put it in the film cans. You can then snap the lids on the cans and store them at room temp.

Next get a roll of duct tape or a roll of light wire and attach a few of the cans to limbs on your lilac bush. You will be amazed at how fast the birds discover the suet and once they discover it, you can be sure they will tell their friends.

Kimcoco,

You will find lots of suet recipes here that list amounts
http://www.sialis.org/suet.htm
The accipiter referred to as a chicken hawk is usually the Coopers. To make a suet log, I found an appropriate sized log and used a hole saw to drill holes it in. Then I screwed an eyebolt into the top to hang it from. You do not need perches unless you're trying to make it easier for perching birds. Even then I've found that not many birds have trouble accessing it. I don't like to make it too easy or the Blue Jays would consume it all it five minutes. Do you have a tree you could hang it from? The birds need someplace to escape to if a predator appears. To make it easy, you can just press the suet into the crooks of a tree. You certainly can freeze the suet mixture. I make a big batch at a time and keep what I'll need for a few days in the refrigerator and freeze the rest.

I make my suet mixture using suet or lard. I melt the fat in a glass bowl in the microwave until liquid. Then I add crunchy peanut butter, which melts in the hot fat. Then I add the dried ingredients - corn meal, flour, oats (usually ground in blender), ground eggshells, crushed nuts, a little jam or jelly, etc. The mixture is about 1/2 fat, 1/2 dried ingredients - maybe a little more dried. I aim for a mixture that is the texture of Play-doh - it clumps together easily for the suet log, but also crumbles into pieces that I spread in a tray feeder.

I made the suet log over 3 years ago out of an old red Pine log and glued lots of perches and branches. It did not have much bark on it - which is fine, except that over time the log has darkened quite a bit, perhaps because of the oils in the suet mixture. Also, most of the perches and branches have broken and fallen off. This birds don't seem to care.

If you put perches on the log, this will enable many more birds to eat more easily. However, this isn't necessarily a good thing because with mine, it enables the Starlings and Blue Jays to hog the suet log, and it encourages House Sparrows.

My suet log is pole-mounted with a squirrel/raccoon baffle, so nothing gets onto the log but the birds.

Here's what the suet mixture looks like -

Some Bluebirds on the suet log a couple years ago. They don't eat that much on the suet log any more, because I usually spread crumbles in a tray for them.
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Terrene,

Can you tell me what type of tray feeder you use? Whether it hangs from a tree, or is on a railing, etc.?

I want to add a tray feeder to what I have but am not sure what to use (there are several different types out there of course!) You have success with your feeders so any advice about this type would be great.

Thanks in advance -

Donna

P.S. - Great photo of the bluebirds. I have never seen a bluebird, ever, in real life, so your photos, mac60s, and others' have been so cool to see.

Hi Chickadee,

My trays and feeders are kind of a home-made hodgepodge. They are not going to win any aesthetic awards, but the birds don't care. One is a wire plant hanger that I sewed a piece of screen on the bottom using fishing line (where the Chickadee is perched). It hangs from a pole setup w/baffle. Very easy to clean out. The other is a seed tray that normally goes below a tube feeder but I just attached it to the pole under the suet log (where the Bluebird is perched). I spread suet crumbles and BOSS in these.

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Ingenuity and creativity - I love it! Your feeders and setup are resourceful and they are eye-catching too.

When you are new at this it can sometimes seem like you are bombarded by bird catalogues, emails, photos of what you "should" have for the birds - it really takes the fun out of it. I love what you did with the planter, and the way you have the suet log(which as I remember, you made yourself), with a tray under it, is cool.

I am going to enjoy using my imagination to come up with some tray feeders. As always, thank you so much for your inspiration Terrene!

Donna

Hi Donna, thanks for the kind words. Bird-watching is big business and I imagine there will always be somebody happy to part you with your money. But the birds could care less what something looks like, or fancy feeders and houses, they just want to eat safely.

Re: the tray feeders, metal screen or hardware cloth with a small grid would be excellent material for the bottom of a tray feeder, as it's sturdy (perhaps with cross-bracing), lets water and air flow through, and is so easy to clean out. I just bang or brush it and sometimes spray with the hose.

Yes I made the suet log, but since this one is getting delapidated, I've been designing a new one in my head but haven't gotten off the ole butt to make it yet. :)

Terrene, those are some awesome pics. My suet mix isn't as chunky as yours (I used smooth peanut butter), but it worked fine once I refrigerated it.

Funny, as I'm sitting here about to tell you that I've had NO activity on my new log feeders for days, I see a female cardinal sitting in my tree, checking out the log feeders I have hanging on my porch. I'll try a few more days, and if no luck, then I'll move them. Our back door isn't high activity, especially this time of year, but I know if I move them to my garage overhang, those darn squirrels are going to get to them.

We made two suet feeders, one for us, one for my MIL. We got the 1 1/4" drill bit, but the bit started smoking, so we used our hammer drill and that was much easier. In looking at the perches in the pic above, they are much longer than mine. I think I used 3 inch dowels, drilled the holes and glued them in. I went half and half, some feeding holes have perches, others don't.

I have a ton of other birds at my regular feeders within the past few days. Most I've seen all season.

" I don't want to feed my birds, making a meal of them for the chicken hawks."

You are creating the equivalent of a watering hole in Africa ... a place that attracts prey and predators. If the idea bothers you, stop feeding.

Even without feeding stations, I have lots of bird species and occasionally one is taken by a hawk ... I find the feathers and feeding debris under the trees.

Lazypup, I love your idea of using 35mm film canisters for little suet holders!

i know i posted ealier in this thread but had a few more comments. I use lard or shortning in the winter mix cause it sets up and hold the block together better but also add meat dripings or used cooking oil ect. because the woodpeckers love the meat taste and add bits of ground or diced leftover beef or pork or chicken. in the warm months i quit useing lards or oils and use sorghum or molasses instead. make a very thick dough and mold in the trays or cages. I warm my lard or shortning in a glass bowl in the micowave just enough to make it easy to work. as i don't want it runny. I hang my trays or blocks in a tree because the birds fly first from tree to tree and sit there till it's clear before they go to the feeders. and dart into the thick part of the tree if anything startles them.

I render beef tallow - get all I need free from a local market - for my base ingredient and add whatever to that while is it still warm. Before it cools, I put the entire batch in a 1/2 gallon paper juice(?) carton and store it in the freezer. I cut slices off of this with a hand saw (messy), but this just fits in the square suet feeders that are so commom.