Children's Activity Suet & Seeds to Feed the Bird

Suet is beneficial for birds and a favorite of  nuthatches, woodpeckers, wrens, chickadees, cardinals, and most insect-eating birds.  (Almanac, 2014)

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I purchased chopped Suet from the Grocery Store @ $4.95 a bag this bowl has 4 bags in it

In the winter it provides the necessary fat that is hard to find as insects become hard to find.  In spring is provides birds with the increased energy they needs to build nest and lay eggs.  In the fall suet helps that birds store fat for the winter migration.   

Bird seed is from the Co-op $9.95

 Your suet ornaments should be located at least 5 feet off the ground to prevent other animals for eating them and near the trunk of a tree. (Foster & Smith, 2014)  Once the birds discover your suet decorations they will eat it quickly so here is a hint if the suet remains untouched for too long move it.

Many wild birds require fat to keep them healthy over the winter and suet is a good way of providing this.

You will need:

• A bowl
• Cookie cutters  (it maybe because we used chopped suet or because we were impatient our cookie cutters ornaments did not hold together at all)
• Bird seeds of any kind
• Suet

Directions:

 Mix the suet and birdseed

using a wax paper covered cookie sheet

 place your cookie cutter on the wax paper and fill it with the suet seed mixture

 As stated previously our cookie cutters did not work so we tried two other ways.
#1 We but the suet seed mixture into plastic bags and worked them into balls

#2 We put the seed into peat flower pots 

Place these in the freezer until they are hard

 Once our suet was hard we removed the peat covering and tied yarn around the winter treat and hung it outside.

 Our suet balls worked out about 50% of the time if the children did not work the ball in the plastic enough the suet fell apart.

See how many different birds come to your suet feeder.  All was not lost though we put the loose suet and seeds into the bottoms of clay pots and placed these in our fruit trees and we had birds feeding off the suet within an hour.

See how many different birds come to your suet feeder.

Grandma Snyder

© 2013-2015 twosnydergirls

Almanac. (2014). Bird Food Recipe: Suet. Retrieved from The Old Farmer's Almanac: http://www.almanac.com/content/bird-food-recipe-suet

Foster, & Smith. (2014, January 2). Suet Feeder Overvivew. Retrieved from Doctors Foster and Smith: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=1263