Why not make your own fat balls for the birds?
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Discoveries, General care, Wildlife | 74 comments
Watching the birds feeding just outside the kitchen windows gives me enormous pleasure. Since the bird eating cat that used to lurk in our front garden has moved away there are many more ground feeding birds and quite often I spot mice collecting seeds. Mice in the shrubs are fine. When they come into the house they are a problem.We give the birds mixed seed and fat balls all year. We only put out peanuts in the colder non nesting months as baby birds can choke on peanuts. Finally my large tub of fat balls for the birds has run out. So I decided to make my own. My friend Bunty, pours off all her warm leftover fat into flat plastic containers and she strings these up for the birds. This works well in the depths of winter when it is freezing outside. I tried it once in the summer and the fat melted in the sunshine.
I had a bit of a sniff about on the Internet and discovered that lard or suet seems to be a good fat base for home made fat feeders. There is an interesting thread in the Wild About Britain forum with several recipes and useful suggestions such as adding raisins to the mixture.
I found an old coconut feeder knocking about in the barn. We buy wild bird seed in 25 kilo sacks. So I filled the half coconut shell with mixed seeds and poured the melted lard over the seed. I put it in the fridge to harden. It hangs in a sunny spot and has not melted. Lard is cheap, and the massive sacks of bird seed are under ?10. So this homemade mixture is so much cheaper than the commercially produced balls.
Yesterday I spotted a coconut in the supermarket. After we have gorged on coconut I plan to use the shells to make two more reusable bird fat feeders.
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Hello Liz
Thanks very much for this. Really useful tips.
Hi I found the best way to make the fat ball was to use plastic cups. put the string in the cup first. heat the lard and the nuts bits of cake left of cerial. bread crumbs. and chopped fruit. any of the above.
heat the lard and the nuts.
let it cool so as not to melt the cups.
put them in the fridge to cool.
when you come to use them . run the bottom of the cup under hot water and it just pops out.
you can then reuse the cups.
tie the string around the centre to secure it better and tie it on a tree for the birds. they love them. better than the bought ones. bit difficult for them with the mesh.
If you are really struggling for containers then you can use toilet rolls cut in half. I dip the end in fat and then place them on a piece of newspaper until it sets. Then I fill the bottom with stale bread and pack it tight, (to form a seal to stop the fat running out.) Then you can layer the rest of the tube with your mix letting it set slightly before you add the next layer. Once it is all set you can remove the newspaper and tie the tube up with string.
It doesn’t look pretty but the birds don’t seem to mind!
Hi Robert
This is a great idea. Thank you!
As well as fat and seeds i also use cheap peanut butter added to the mix it works out a lot cheaper if you do a lot at once and the birds love it especially the starlings they can hang on to anything even my large seed feeders.Shop bought fat balls don’t interest the birds, I’ve tried them side by side and there’s only one winner.You can buy 50 small plastic cups or glasses at asda for £1 and these are ideal to fill,set,take out of cups and then put in a feeder
Hi, I’m using fat ball from my local wildlife society shop. They’re fine until they become smaller than the mesh size of the fatball feeder, they then fall through and my small dog eats them. He’s then immediately sick, usually on the carpet.
I now remove them before they get too small but it’s very wasteful and so I’ve tried to gently heat them up together as I thought they’d melt or at least soften and I could pour or push them into a new container. All that happened was I filled the house with an exceedingly nasty smell and a lot of smoke.
Does anyone have any bright ideas on how I could re-use them?
Some times birds take a while to get used to something new in the garden and if its something they have never seen any where else before this may be a factor. Im undecided on attempting making fat balls as i buy high quality ones which are hand made from a local farm shop for 20p each and im not sure if i can do it any cheaper altho im sure the kids would live a go at making them.
Hi all, Im a bit upset at my lard ball success. I made a lard ball as you had all said and tied mine with string and placed it in a prominent place in my garden where the plastic ahnger used to hang and the birds flocked to. I have been watching and the birds wont go near it, it has been 3 days now. Is their a reason for this do you think??
Loved reading this thread as I always made fat balls with the children at the playgroup I worked in every year as part of a winter project. I agree though that the birds do seem to prefer the shop bought ones – perhaps they contain the bird equivalent of MSG. We have loads of starlings about here but they seem to prefer feeding off the farm next door’s sillage pit. We have had a buzzard trying to catch the birds feeding around the bird table though – they are probably an easy catch in the cold weather.
The other thing I thought might be a good idea. is to buy a coconut and use the drill for making holes in doors for yale locks.
drill the coconut and hang it up with the coconut still inside. the birds can then eat the contents and the blue tits might even nest there.
what do you think.
I have bought bird houses but they fall apart.
I think nature knows best.
Hi , I enjoyed reading all your comments. for the first time i have today made some fat balls. I used a pack of lard and garden bird seed. I cut string and placed this in 6 cups. I heated the lard added nuts and garden bird seed. then i found left over dates from christmas. I stuck one in each cup. hope these are safe for the birds. I have now placed the cups in the fridge and hope i can get them out when they cool. I am so excited and hope this works. I made a loop in the bottom of the cup of string then after filling i moved the string to the middle. I will let you know if it works.