Fat Ball Bird Feeding Recipe

[J4MES]

Here is a recipe which i use regularly for feeding my garden birds!

Ingredients:

Lard (depends on how many balls you wish to make)
bird seed
peanuts
breadcrumbs
dead flys (optional)

1 Place the lard in a warm place until soft
2 Cut the lard into strips
3 put the strips of lard into a large mixing bowl
4 add the seeds slowly whilst mixing them in with your hands
5 do the same with he rest of the ingredients
6 once the mixture has a nice amount of seeds etc take out handfuls and make them into balls of about 1.5 inches in diameter.
7 Put the balls on a plate and leave in the fridge for 24hrs
8 put the balls into a specially designed fat ball feeder

Within a few weeks you will have a great array of different birds. The best i have got so far is a great spotted woodpecker!!

J4MES

 

[lmbridgen]

Great one
I remembered making something like that when I was in school only I couldnt remember how to make it, we set ours in yoghurt pots with string to hang them up by when they had set.

 

[J4MES]

Yeah thats another way of doing it lol.

J4MES

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When i make bird cakes i always melt the lard or dripping in a pan before mixing in the seeds and stuff, but i guess it depends on the kind of bird cake you are making.

The only thing i'd like to add is that with peanuts you should never use salted/seasoned ones as wild birds in general have a very low tolerance of salt, it can easily kill them or make them sick. This also generally goes for any food, also avoided preserved foods like pickled ones or smoked foods like bacon etc- try to avoid preservatives, sweeteners, colourings and flavorings in general as these sorts of things can make birds very ill.
Also, avoid feeding whole peanuts when birds are nesting as sometimes small birds like blue tits will try and feed them to their chicks and the chicks end up choking on them. When feeding peanuts to birds, IMHO the best way to feed them is either in a wire mesh bird feeder where the birds can't take them out whole, or feed the peanuts ground up in something like a bird cake etc . You can buy pre-ground peanuts for birds if you don't want the hassle of grinding them up yourself.

 

[J4MES]

Thanks tokis!

I put bacon rinds in them sometimes, they seem to enjoy those.

J4MES