The holiday season can sometimes be a busy and hectic time of year for some of us, but we all seem to find a little downtime around the Christmas break. It is a time of year when many of us are spending time with those we love most and taking part in many seasonal activities.
A great way to spend some time together or with the kids is to try your hand at making a homemade suet for your backyard birds. It’s a great way to create a purely customized winter food source for your birds and a great activity to bring us all together. Here’s how:
Render Your Suet
There are a variety of ways to render suet, but the easiest way is using either lard or vegetable shortening from your local grocery store. Simply heat the fat on low in an adequately sized skillet on your stove top until becomes liquefied. Keep an eye on the heat level when warming the fat, too much heat can lead to burning and even fires.
Add Your Fixins
This is step is not necessary, as the birds can and will munch on your suet after it is molded without any added food. But there simply just isn’t much fun in that. There are a number of items you can add to your suet mixed before it is formed to give your backyard birds extra flavours and food. We suggest using chopped and unsalted nuts, dried fruit, your own GMO-free Gilligallou Birdseed or honey to give your suet a great touch of flavour and customization.
Pour into Molds
Using something as simple as a household Tupperware container, you can add the liquefied suet to any type of mold and shape to reach your desired outcome. Suet can be molded into any shape or form, so get creative and have fun, but make sure you consider the accessibility of the suet for your birds.
If however, do it yourself-ing isn’t quite your cup of tea, we still stock a number of premade suet products ready to be hung for your backyard birds. Let us know your own suet recipes, we’d love to hear them!
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