Make Your Own Wild Bird Food – Suet Recipe
By Bruce Underwood

Many wild birds will enjoy your suet. See if you can attract these species:

Eastern Bluebird, Chickadee, Finch, Flicker, Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Yellow-Rumped Warbler, or the Red-Bellied Woodpecker!

Great project for 5 year old or older – with proper adult supervision

Complexity – Medium

Time to Complete – 2 hours

Main Ingredient – Fat

Needed – Fat or lard from bacon drippings, meat cookings, meat trimmings, etc.

- Suet hanger from a hardware store, or build your own, or use a fruit or vegetable (onion) sack.

(Note – You can pour the mixture from Step 2 into a cupcake pan and skip the hanger altogether. Just place a string into each cupcake before it hardens. You now have Suet Cupcakes to decorate your backyard trees!)

Step 1 - Render the fat -

a) Chop or Grind the fat into small pieces (little cubes)

b) Soften the fat over low heat on the stove –

add 1/2 inch water in the pan, cover with lid,

be careful not to overheat – this may take 15 minutes

c) strain through cheesecloth

d) allow to cool

e) re-heat again and strain again (the suet will only

harden if you perform steps 1b and 1c a 2nd time

Step 2 - Using a bread pan, mix into the softened fat a variety of household staples, such as old cereal, crackers, bread crumbs, nuts, berries, dried fruit, raisins, whole wheat flour, cornmeal, rolled oats, croutons, even dog or cat food.

Step 3 - Let the entire mixture cool and harden

Step 4 - Cut into slices that will fit your holder

Enjoy!

We have built a web site dedicated to sharing these recipes.

Check us out at http://www.makeyourownbirdfood.com.

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