How to Make a Wild Bird Suet

Homemade suet cakes are a sure-fire way to attract a variety of wild birds to your yard or garden. Wild birds look for food with fat to keep them warm, particularly in the colder months. Since suet cakes are primarily made up of fatty tissue from a cow's kidney area, making your own suet cakes is a simple, cost-effective way to help keep the birds coming back to your feeder, especially in the colder months.

Things You'll Need

• Suet
• Electric fry pan
• Bread pan or cupcake tin
• Wire
• Bird seed

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Instructions

1. • 1

     Make up lard mixture or locate suet. Contact your local butcher and ask if they have suet available. Often they will have it for free or very little money. If you can not get suet, you can make a lard mixture by mixing equal parts of lard, peanut butter, and flour.

   • 2

     Melt down the fat. In an electric frying pan, melt down either your suet or lard mixture until it is the consistency of soup.

   • 3

     Add birdseed. Stir in birdseed or other ingredients of your choice such as: oats, unsalted peanuts, berries, hemp, or cut up fruit pieces.

   • 4

     Pour warm suet mixture into a bread pan or cupcake tin and place your pan on a level surface in a freezer. Freeze the mixture for 4 to 6 hours.

   • 5

     Hang your suet outside. Using a thin piece of craft wire, pierce your suet, and hang on a tree branch or gatepost.