DIY Bird Suets

 Well, I think after that -5 frost we had Friday night, it's officially time to stop chatting about the garden! In reality, I really haven't entered it in about a month... there's lots of work and clean up to get done now, but other than root veggies, the plants have all bit the dust!!  So with all this brisk weather and threats of snowfall, I want to change the tone to something winter related! Today I want to do a little DIY about bird suet! We started making these yearly, two years ago. Truly, it's been so fun to grow our bird population on our property over the winters, as a result! Mostly we get a lot of chickadees. Those cute little birds with the black heads. We also get woodpeckers (like the above, though not my photo), the odd blue-jay, and sometimes those annoying magpies make an appearance. We've also had something that looks like a wild turkey or quail of some variety pop up before dawn if your out watching early enough. So far, thanks to our dog, no squirrels! Haha!

Did you know, that of all the chickadee's that stay over the winter months, only about 30% actually survive the winter!? BUT!! But when they have access to a feeder, that percentage increases to a whopping 60%! The reason being that chickadees are so tiny that they lose about 10% of their body mass OVERNIGHT in the winter simply keeping warm! So you'll often see these hungry buzzards both dawn and dusk stocking up on much needed food.

Suet is a form of bird feeder specifically for winter birds. Its a combination of fruits and nuts, molded into a brick and held to form by a medium of solid fats such as lard or coconut oil or tallow.  You can buy these in stores too, for $3-5 a piece, but I love to make our own. Not only is it cost effective, but I can trust it more. Did you know that Scott's brand bird seed underwent a lawsuit a few years ago for putting out GMO birdseed that was actually killing the birds it was meant to feed!? So now I have a hard time trusting commercial products for birds :(

Suet is so easy to make, and its a great interactive activity to do with kids!

 This is my ingredients. As you can see, other than the bag of black oil sunflower seeds, its all food from my pantry. You can use any combination of seeds, nuts and fruit/dried fruits. Just make sure your nuts aren't roasted and salted, and your dried fruits are organic so they don't contain sulphites. Also fresh fruit will either need to be organic, or peeled... Remember, most pesticides on produce are designed to directly target are lovely birds!! (I'll post my recipe at the end for you all. But honestly you don't need one!)

 Start by putting your solid fats into a pot and melting them down. For this recipe I did 2 parts lard, to 1 part coconut oil. Using good quality fats is essential since fat makes up most of a birds diet in the winter. Don't wanna give them heart disease! :) You want fats that will bulk them up in a good hearty way. Lard and coconut oil are both good options. Lard being cheaper, and coconut oil being a really big attraction for them to your feeder!

Black Oil Sunflower Seeds were the most widely loved seed in most of the bird feeder studies I looked at while prepping for what ingredients to use. Millet was the least, and it makes up over 75% of most bird seed mixtures (those little white/tan seeds). It just ends up on the ground, sprouting in spring time. Yes black oil seeds leave shells on the snow, but you're really not gonna end up with stray un-wanted sunflowers poking up through your lawn! one mow and those sprouts will just die off. So... for my mix, I ONLY used black oil seed, as far as my selection of birdseed. This gigantic bag was $20 at Walmart. And I used less than 1/4 of the bag in a double recipe. (which made 54 suet bricks!)

To start with, you're gonna need a giant bowl. I am doing two recipes at one time here in two bowls. And my 5 year old was an excellent helper throughout the entire process of making these! The best part was, every time he was like "mum, can I eat this one?" I could say... YES! :)

So here we are with our dry mixture. In my case we have the sunflower seeds making up the bulk of it, with brown flax, chia, peanuts coconut (raw not sweetened) and raisins (always organic for birds, because pesticides can hurt them!)

I then added about 1.5 apples to each recipe I made. You can definitely add more! They didn't have any good sales on apples when I shopped so the birds dont get much this year. Maybe we'll make some apple, peanut butter seed ornaments over christmas for them later :) Again, if you don't buy organic, PEEL PEEL PEEL! Also, apple seeds contain small amounts of cyanide, so make sure to remove those as well... Lovely right!? haha!

Here we have our two giant bowls of seeds and apples, plus our pot of melted fats, which we divided equally into our bowls at this point.

mmmm.... look at that sheen... ;)

A little backwards than you should do it!! LINE YOUR PANS WITH PARCHMENT BEFORE ADDING FROZEN FRUITS! :)  hehe I learned this the hard way as you'll see in a moment. But in the above photo you can see Jojo adding the frozen blueberries to our fatty seed mixture.

We used about half a Costco bag in each recipe. The birds love these little gems. So I decided to be generous this year. Cranberries and frozen peas have mostly gone un-touched or picked out and dropped to the ground in search of other things in the suets. So I left them out despite their pretty colors they add. Perhaps dried cranberries would go over better?? I also wonder about picking teeny crab apples one year to put into these maybe!  other good additions would be anything freezer burned in your fruit section. Strawberries, peaches, cherries etc... birds like fruit! That's why farmers don't like birds! ;)

So... in case you can't tell by the above photo, the fats solidified almost immediately around the blueberries, and as a result, everywhere else. This made pouring and squishing the mixture into the pan a difficult task...

But 350 degrees for about 2 1/2 minutes was enough to make the mixture melty on the edges. I left the pan on the stove top to cool for another 2 minutes and then the heat had evenly penetrated the sheets of seed fats and I could squish everything into an even layer!

 

When you are pressing your mix into the pans, use a square of parchment to save your hands some grief.  And when you are lining your cookie sheets, let your parchment hang over on all sides to act as a bowl to catch the liquid fats until they solidify. you don't want them sneaking between your parchment and your cookie sheets. Then your suet is fused to your cookie sheet for good! ;)

To finish off for day 1, I melted down some more fats (about the equivalent to 1/4 or 1/2 the fat initially melted depending on how white you want your final product to look), and drizzled it over top for a nice even infusion of fats. The fat is your glue remember. So if you don't have enough fats bonding your ingredients together, your bricks wont stay bricks at all.

At this point I let them cool for a while on the counter. You can also just pop them outside on a crisp day for an hour or so. You don't want them totally solid. Just cool enough that the fats are beginning to turn white again. Then you are going to SCORE your bricks into the sheet before freezing solid.

I didn't take a photo of "scoring" but you can see the surface of the above sheet has a grid well cut into it. These cuts were done when the mixture was still extremely soft and malleable, but cool enough to hold the cut lines in place.  After scoring, you can either place the sheets in your freezer or outside overnight since we're getting close to freezing temps pretty regularly already. 
You can also tell in this photo how much excess parchment I had on each side. The sheet of suit comes right off the pan once it's frozen.

The last step is pretty simple. Once they are good and solid, you can just snap them apart like a chocolate bar!

Look how pretty they are! Perfect and ready for the birdies this winter! :)

Lastly, wrap them in saran wrap for ease of separation, and then store in a freezer ziplock bag. I recommend storing these in a freezer and not just outside in the winter, to avoid critters like mice or other winter wanderers from discovering them.

To use them simply unwrap, and pop into your suet cages. You can buy these cages almost anywhere, including dollar stores, Walmart, Canadian tire etc... You can hang them from your house in front of windows, or off trees etc... somewhere higher up, where they aren't going to be enjoyed by other wildlife save the occasional squirrel who cant fully get their grubby paws in there. (yes, that photo was last years suets. Not as much to enjoy as this years! And you can see all the little millet seeds in there too.)

As I promised earlier, here's the recipe of what I did this year. I made a double recipe of this to get 54 suet bricks. 

Bird Suet Recipe 2018

·    2 cups coconut oil

·    2-3 bricks of lard (tenderflake or no name brand. Not shortening)

·    10 cups black oil sunflower seeds (found in pet section with other bird seeds)

·    1 ½ cup raw or unsalted peanuts  (walmart “joes tasty travels” is very cheap)

·    2 cups brown flaxseeds (walmart “joes tasty travels” is very cheap)

·    1 ½ cups chia seeds

·    2 cups unsweetned coconut shreds/flakes etc..

·    2 ½ cups organic raisins (half of one of the costco bags in the 2-pack boxes)

·    8 cups frozen blueberries (Half a costco bag)

·    1.5-2 apples PEELED and chopped finely (peel has pesticides that can harm birds)

        Combine 2 cups coconut oil, and 2 bricks of lard in a pot and heat over low-medium heat, stirring until melted.

        In an extra-extra large bowl, combine all dry ingredients  except apples and blueberries. Stir well. You must use organic raisins because conventional ones may contain pesticides designed specifically to eliminate pesky birds in farmer vineyards. This is the same logic in peeling your apples.

        Toss in apples and stir in.

        Next pour in your melted oils and stir well to combine.

        Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment, being generous to have over-hang over the edges of your pan, to act as a sort of bowl-like feature to contain liquid oils till they solidify. You don’t want these creeping under your parchment, fusing your suet block to your cookie sheet!!

        AFTER your cookie sheets are lined, add your frozen blueberries to your suet mixture and stir quickly.

        Quickly pour mixture into the 3 cookie sheets. Filling two generously, and dumping remainder into the third sheet (it will only be filled about ¼-1/3 of the way). Use another square of parchment to press the mixture down tightly into all the corners of the  cookie sheet so it is very full.

        If you work too slowly, the cold from your blueberries will harden your fats too soon, and you’ll be squishing seeds and solid fats into the sheet. The odds of your mix fusing into one solid brick is much lower when this happens.

        If you mix does cool too soon, simply preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake each sheet for about 2.5 minutes. Remove from oven, and let sit on stove top another minute for warmth to penetrate to the center. Then use your extra square of parchment, to press and flatten the tops again now that the oils have melted.

        If desired, melt down a third brick of lard, and drizzle evenly over the tops of the finished cookie sheets, filling in any cracks between seeds with more suet fats for those little birdies.

        Cover sheets in saran wrap, and let cool on your counter until the fats are all solidified. About 4-6 hours. If your mix is not setting, place these in the fridge for another 20-30 minutes. You don’t want to freeze these yet.

        Once  fats are mostly set, use a butter knife, edge of a cutting board or something else you prefer to make deep score lines separating your sheet into individual bricks.

        Freeze solid

        Break sheet apart on it’s score-lines, and wrap each square individually in saran wrap. Store all suets in freezer bags in the freezer until use. These are good beginning in cool fall weather, and continuing through cool spring weather. Once things begin to warm up, the fats will melt and start to drip. So these are strictly for use in cool weather for winter birds like chickadees, cardinals, bluejays etc…