Topic: Make your own fat balls & suet blocks?

[Hyacinth]

Would anyone have a recipe, please?

Thanks.

[elvis2003]

i made some fat balls once,dont still have the recipe but it involved softly melting lard,stirring in all manner of seeds etc,then shaping the mixture into balls before hanging them up.it was really messy,smelly and the birds didnt touch them  ;D  ;D  ;D much to the amusement of OH.
i hope someone comes along with a more positive story to share with you!

[Hyacinth]

thanks! at least I know what NOT to do  ;D ;D ;D cos I'd prolly have done what you did :-[

[rosebud]

Lish, i make mine, melt the lard , put in mixed fruit shops cheapo own make , peanut, mixed seed, bread crumbs,i put the suet in when its almost cold mix it up again get yer rubber gloves on & shape it round a piece of string to hang it up OR, i do this also, fill a yogurt pot with the mix, & put a stick in the middle then pop in the freezer for an hour or the fridge overnight.
My greedy little birds eat them Ok.  Mary.xxx

[thifasmom]

i don't have set recipe that i follow, but this is how i normally do it:

1 block of lard softened to room temperature.
1 cup of oats
1 cup of nyjer seed
1 cup each of at least two different seed mixes
1 kid ;) to knead till their arms are tired then i take over when most of the work is done :D.

these are added as i have them but it is really whatever i have at hand i aim for a cup but somethings may be more or less depending on what I've got.

1 cup of dried fruit
1 cup of grated coconut
2+ cup of wild berries (hawthorn, rosehips, crab apple chopped up, holly berries, wild quince chopped up what ever i could fine on my autumn walk).
1 cup of cornmeal

this year early September there were some high winds around my area and there was a lot of rowan berries on the ground so my daughter and i gathered them up and the fat balls were made with them.

another thing i sometimes do is freeze any grubs i find in the soil during the growing period. then when i'm making the fatball in the autumn i add the lot :).

so i normally just add everything to the bowl and knead the lot together, then form balls place in clingfilm individually and freeze. then put into my caged fat feeder as needed.

sometimes i also use other receptacles such as half coconut shells and yogurt pots as well.

[manicscousers]

can you get her to come and make some for me, lovely pic  ;D

[Hyacinth]

Smashing pics, mom 8) and I notice the little one isn't doing it with a peg on her nose either ;D

Thanks Buds and mom for the recipes; you've both given me good ideas. I bought a tub of 50 fatballs for the greedy little tweeters last week but the way they're going through them they'll be all gone by Christmas, the tits are really hyperactive and going mad for them. Prolly full of E-numbers ;D

[thifasmom]

can you get her to come and make some for me, lovely pic  ;D

manics you can have her anytime once you are willing to pay for her passage ;D

Smashing pics, mom 8) and I notice the little one isn't doing it with a peg on her nose either ;D

i doesn't smell to much if its not melted i think ???.

[hellohelenhere]

I was just looking this up, by coincidence. Someone somewhere said 1 part lard to 2 parts nuts/seeds/fruits/scraps - I see TM has it more like 1 to 4. I guess anywhere between those will work. Your results look great, TM - I'm very impressed by your dedication in freezing grubs. My mum used to freeze strange things like dead fieldmice, birds, & I think once even a polecat - for reasons of wildlife study/ID/record - so I'm glad she wasn't the only mother to have strange zoology in the freezer. Don't worry, your offspring won't grow up too weird. :D

I've been putting out scraps and various things for the birds with little success so far - my garden is little frequented by birds, apart from a very nice tame robin who comes and twitters and mutters and sings whenever I go out there, which is lovely! I had put up a bird feeder full of broken crackers and it was completely disdained. Yesterday I tried again, with fat balls and peanuts - the robin was attempting to eat from the feeders but obviously it doesn't have the right kind of legs for that... I have plans, though...

Glad to say that I've now had long-tailed tits, blackbirds, great tits, and I think the odd finch show up at least briefly in the garden so it's not as desolate as I first thought. Hopefully as I bribe them with more and better treats, they'll get the habit.

[Tulipa]

Hi Helen,

Robins are generally ground feeders, but having said that they have learnt to take seed from the feeders in our garden by hovering and snatching the seed, the blackbirds do it too.  I have got round it by hanging a hanging tray from a bracket on the fence post so that the food is away from cats etc but easily accessible for the robins. They eat anything from here.

If you can get sunflower seeds or better still hearts for your feeder they love them and they have the highest energy content for the cold winter to keep the birds healthy.  Wilkos are the cheapest.

Robins are my favourite birds, my Dad used to feed them from his hand with crumbled digestive biscuits.

Enjoy your birds, they will be starting to look for food now the berries are beginning to have finished.

T.

[debster]

i use duck fat to cook my roast taters on xmas day and last year i used the remainder to mix with bird seed etc etc then put it in a foil dish outside, couldnt make a ball with it as too soft but it went down well with next doors cats!!  ;D

[Hyacinth]

LOL @ Debster!

Helen, coupla things about feeding birds in the garden, I think...first off, it'll take a while (hopefully short) for them to get used to coming to yours for food, so once they've started to come, keep on keeping on - they expand a lot of energy just searching for it.

Then, not only robins but all (well I think all) of the thrushes are ground feeders, and chaffinches too, tho they'll also feed on shrubs and trees, so some food on the lawn, paths and under hedges is a good idea. Mind you, I reckon there's a fine line to be drawn between feeding birds or rats :o in these situations :-\

[hellohelenhere]

The first thing I tried was throwing food on the ground - the robin did take the occasional grain of rice but didn't seem hugely interested. (Just not the right kind of food, probably!). I've also made an impromptu bird table for the ground feeders, which is a board resting on two plastic garden chairs. Again, the kitchen scraps I've put out don't seem appealing as they've been there several days! Including apple, which I thought blackbirds liked?

I don't really want to throw food on the ground, in case I encourage mice and rats; and it seems to be the most vulnerable as far as cat attack is concerned. Haven't seen a lot of cats round  here, but they might appear slowly as the birds do! And if I do see one, I'll certainly try to befriend it, as I've been hoping for a 'loan cat'. :D

I'd like to make a proper bird table soonish. I think mostly, I need to give them better bird food. Now they have fat balls and peanuts perhaps they will show more interest!  Plus, I'm putting the feeders in the tree at the end of the garden. Once they're used to that, I'll try feeders at the house end of the garden which they're probably more nervous of.

[thifasmom]

I was just looking this up, by coincidence. Someone somewhere said 1 part lard to 2 parts nuts/seeds/fruits/scraps - I see TM has it more like 1 to 4. I guess anywhere between those will work. Your results look great, TM - I'm very impressed by your dedication in freezing grubs. My mum used to freeze strange things like dead fieldmice, birds, & I think once even a polecat - for reasons of wildlife study/ID/record - so I'm glad she wasn't the only mother to have strange zoology in the freezer. Don't worry, your offspring won't grow up too weird. :D

;D good to know, cause with me you don't know the half of it. my daughter started school this term and i have befriended one of the moms as we walk the same way to drop our kids to school. well one day there was a man trimming his pine tree/ hedge which borders the foot path, since i needed this for mulching my cranberry planter i was delighted to see fresh clippings and exclaimed that i needed to stop and collect some (i always have a spare plastic bag under the pushchair - well you never know :-\).

so while i collected the clippings she waited and i said out load that she probably has never met anyone like me. roll on a few weeks and i had some seed bombs that i was scattering on the overgrown section of the footpath that was recently strimmed by the council. as i happily scattered the seed bombs while we walked and talked on the way home she suddenly stopped, looked back the way we came then looked at me and said you were right i have never met anyone like you :-[ :D.

[Hyacinth]

 8) ;D @ mom.

[thifasmom]

i know right!! ::) ;D ;D

[Hyacinth]

Hi Helen,

Robins are generally ground feeders, but having said that they have learnt to take seed from the feeders in our garden by hovering and snatching the seed, the blackbirds do it too.  I have got round it by hanging a hanging tray from a bracket on the fence post so that the food is away from cats etc but easily accessible for the robins. They eat anything from here.


T.

So many thanks for the idea this sparked! I'd stopped feeding birds cos squirrels always sabotaged my attempts >:( and I've been likewise reluctant to feed the ground feeders cos of the rats there are around.....so..
this morning I filled two re-cycled hanging baskets - the ones which are wicker baskets lined with polythene one of my laydees wanted dumped - with straw left over from the bag I bought for me strawbrys, topped them with chopped up suet blocks, added a few seeds etc for good measure, and hung them from the central arches of Wilkos finest - safe from rats, both flying & ground ones.....and waited.

Within just 15 minutes these have been attracting attention and I think I've already got a resident blackbird nesting in one of them 8) Can't see me doing much housework today, too fascinated by looking out of the window. Oh OK, maybe I'll clean the windows ;D

Downside might be that wood pigeons are circling...deffo gotta keep a close watch, then :D

[caroline7758]

Don't think there's much you can do to stop rats- we had them climbing up the wall and on to the bracket then hanging upside down on the feeder last year- yuk! If they can get into lofts they can get anywhere  :(

[Hyacinth]

Caro, it's precisely this accessibility for rats/tree rats that stopped me putting out feeders for them. Anything hanging from trees (and I've gotta lotta trees ::)) or walls/fences etc was a no-no....so far I've found my free-standing bird station (early Xmas prezzie to myself this year 8)), being a single narrow metal pole with feeders off it, has, so far :-\ been successful....likewise suspending feeders from the free-standing Wilko arches.

Still waiting...and watching :D

[Bean_Queen]

I find lard too greasy & messy, so I do this:

1) melt some suet in a plastic Xmas pudding bowl, in the microwave
2) stir in seeds / nuts / bacon fat / etc
3) cool then freeze
4) pop out of the mould and into a hanging feeder

Blackbirds don't use feeders (unless they are hung close to the ground, but high enough to deter rats) so I tend to throw a handful of soaked raisins for them.
They also like cake, baked potato, but not rice.  Nothing will eat rice I find

I've never had a rat problem, squirrels neither