i make my own mixes sorghum in the summer and fall and suet in the winter and spring.And make the mixes thick so they can be molded into the wire cages. The woodpeckers seem to prefer the rectangle block cage and the chickadees and nuthatches like the square cages best. i uually hang them so they dangle so the pest birds have trouble hanging on as well. if they are too close to anything the birds can perch on they stretch or lean to eat on them. I do put some crumbly mix at times in a pan on the window sill that the litle birds land in and eat. the bigger birds don't seem to want to land near the window as much.

dklucius,

Thank you for sharing your approach. Last year I had a wood upside down feeder that was destroyed by a raccoon, so I am looking for a metal suet holder now.

Is the rectangle block cage that you use one that holds a seed block or suet block? There are so many.

Thanks!

Donna

the block cage is the one for the molded woodpecker blocks
the other are the square suet cages. When i make my mix i use some peanut butter and thicken the suet mix with cornmeal or rolled oats and mixed bird seed and when the fats harden up enough to spoon into the metal cage and i press it down to fill the block. and if it's not hardened enough i stick it in the freezer for awhile before i put it out. the others i use sorghum or molasses and peanut butter in summer instead of fats and they are gummy enough to hold together too. but i also used the plastic trays from old suet blocks or the halfs of the plastic trays that raspbpberrys or blackberrys come in and put them in the suet cages if the mix is not thick or gummy enough

I like the rectangular wire cage that holds two square suet blocks. When it's down to less than one block I can just dump another one on top rather than having to wait until it's empty or dump the remainder on the ground.

I'm not usually willing to make my own suet - I buy from the store most of the time.

Claire

Thanks Claire!

I use this one (link below) from wild birds unlimited and my downy woodpeckers love it (along with several other varieties of birds). Our red bellied woodpecker seems to prefer shelled sunflower seeds, and he will fight off the sparrows at the tube feeder to get to them. The hairy woodpecker loves our shelled peanut feeder.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1065489&l=9316b1cf7a&id=1634949104

On another note: How do you upload images on a reply post?

To put an image in a reply post it needs to be on an online server that allows direct linking. If you will be doing it often you need to open a free account at a site like photobucket.com and upload the pictures you might want to post. For one picture or an occasional picture it's probably easier to use tinypic.com. Go to tinypic.com and upload your picture. After it's uploaded copy the 'html for websites' code and paste it in your gardenweb post. When you preview the post the picture will show up where you pasted the code.