Feeding Suet Year Round
Suet, according to Mr. Webster, is “the hard fat around the kidneys of cattle and sheep from which tallow is obtained”. Forty years ago a meat packer in Maine observed birds picking at scraps on the ground. He started packaging suet for sale: he melted it, hardened it in cups, then placed it in nets for the birds. A new industry was born!
Today, suet is commercially made for bird feeding by rendering, or melting down, beef fat and boiling out bacteria. Different ingredients (seeds, nuts, fruit, dehydrated insects, peanut butter) are added and the mixture is poured into forms to harden. Pure, unrendered suet is still available from the butcher but unrendered suet should not be used in warm weather as it quickly turns rancid and can melt and drip on birds’ feathers. For warm weather suet feeding, grain is added to create suet “dough” cakes which stand up well to summer temperatures.
You can make your own “suet”, too, using peanut butter, lard, or bacon grease to which you can add seeds, nuts and fruit. Pack your suet in suet logs or hang it in a net or onion bag. Recipes for different home made “suets” are often found on the Fun & Learning page of Bird Chat and in Irene Cosgrove’s book titled “My Recipes are for the Birds” ($7.95).
At Wild About Birds we feature Pine Tree Farms suet. Their year-round suet and suet dough cakes are rendered and contain no artificial colors or flavors.
Adding suet to your birdfeeding station will attract a great variety of birds. Insect eaters that you might see include woodpeckers, flickers, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, Carolina wrens; bluebirds and mockingbirds, both fruit eaters, might also visit your suet feeder.
Suet is an important part of the birds’ winter diet when high calorie protein foods (insects) are not available and in the summer it is a valuable supplement for nesting birds with many hungry mouths to feed. Adding suet to your birdfeeding station year round will increase the species visiting your backyard wild bird habitat.