See how you can easily make homemade suet cakes to help the birds and other animals who are braving it through the cold winter months.
How to Make Homemade Suet for Birds
According to the Penn State Extension, "approximately 35 species of birds may be seen at feeders in Pennsylvania," during the winter. That's right, they don't all fly south for the winter, and it gets really cold here. So, I like to make homemade suet cakes to help the birds during the winter. The extra calories from the fat will help them as they labor through long cold days.
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Are Suet Cakes Good for the Birds?
Most of the year we use birdseed in our feeders and continue to do this in the winter. However, the suet is better suited for the cold, especially when it's homemade because when it's hot the suet melts and gets messy.
Can these suet cakes be frozen?
Yes, in fact, you want to keep it frozen until you are ready to place it outside. Otherwise, it will start to melt.
You can make it in a big pot pretty easily.
I like to use lard, peanut butter, cornmeal, and birdseed but there are tons of different recipes all over the internet that you can experiment with.
These plastic sandwich storage containers are the perfect size for our suet cages. The recipe makes enough to fill about six containers, and they stack up easily in the freezer until you are ready to use them outside.
Tips and Ideas for Making Suet Cakes
- Use animal fat that you've cut and saved instead of lard. Bacon grease will work too.
- You can also vegetable shortening that you might have in the pantry for baking. It's a little softer but these are meant for winter so that should not matter.
- Get creative with molds. Use ice cube trays instead of sandwich containers and drop a few cubes in the cage at a time. Or re-use a tuna or cat food cat as your mold.
- Wait until the weather is cold to set out these suet cakes. If it is too warm the suet may melt or turn rancid. For warmer weather climates consider making a non-suet birdseed cake.
Other Suet for Birds add-in ideas:
- chopped nuts
- chopped dried fruit or raisins
- fine cracked corn
- dried mealworms
- oats
- sugar or honey
- eggshells (for calcium)
What Else Can You Place the Bird Suet Cakes In?
- A mesh bag but sturdier is better because the birds can get tangled in them.
- I've seen people use an old coffee cup hung from the handle. Add a stick at the bottom for a perch as recommended by a reader below.
- Or something even more creative like this silverware suet feeder from Birds and Blooms.
No matter how you do it, you can feel good knowing that this suet cake for birds will provide a good source of energy in the winter when birds are spending so much of it just trying to keep warm.
Homemade Suet Cake Recipe
Materials
- 2 16 oz Lard containers
- 2 cups Peanut Butter
- 4 cups cornmeal
- 4 cups birdseed
Instructions
- Melt the lard in a large pot.
- Add peanut butter and heat until combined.
- Add cornmeal. Stir well
- Remove from heat and add birdseed.
- Pour into plastic containers and freeze.
Kate Henn
I love making homemade seed cakes for my backyard birds and I love your ideas and recipes only a few things to consider: use only suet or lard. Bacon grease is known to contain nitrosamines from the preservatives used in its processing. These are not good for birds and pose health risks. Birds are also unlikely to have the intestinal enzymes to properly digest margarine, palm and coconut oils and the solid vegetable oils like Crisco.
Patti Estep
Thanks for your insight Kate.
Carole J Dunn
Love this recipe! So easy and fun to make. The birds are loving it!!
Patti Estep
That's great to hear Carole. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Carol Vinsant
I mixed up your recipe and added to some mugs that I picked up at The Goodwill. I added a stick for a perch. My mugs are setting up in the freezer. This is a great gift idea. I picked some Christmas mugs for 30 cents at the Dollar General last week and they will make great gifts for Christmas 2020. Happy new year, carol
Patti Estep
That's a great idea. Thanks for sharing, Carol!
Nancy
Thank you for the recipe, we live in Wisconsin and have been making suet cakes with peanut butter. With the cold weather creeping up fast we are making your recipe today to freeze for the winter. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Patti Estep
Hi Nancy,
I'm so glad you liked it. They seemed to be well-liked by the birds here in PA last winter.
Phyllis Bachinski
I buy suet in the stores and it can be costly. Some cakes come plain in a package but last year I saved the plastic containers that they come in so that I can make my own. Thank you for this recipe because it sounds much easier than others I have pinned and hadn't tried yet.
Patti Estep
Hi Phyllis,
That's a great idea to use the old containers. It's super cold here in PA and I'm getting ready to pull another suet cake out of the freezer to replace the last one which the birds are eating up fast. I hope your birds love the recipe too.
Carole
Patti this is great and it compliments my project today for Red Cardinals so I'll be sure to share this one. I've never made suet and I have a lot of bird seed so this would be a great solution to using it up. I may have to expand on this idea a little as we're in bird land around here. Since we started all this clearing they visit in large flocks.
Patti Estep
Hi Carole,
How nice for you. I really enjoy watching the birds especially during the warm months when we can sit on the porch and get a good view. Looking forward to seeing what you are doing with red cardinals. They are one of my favorites. I'm sure you've heard the folktale that says red cardinals are visits from loved ones who have passed.