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.
Leave a reply
Hello Jenny
Using the tins is a great idea. Danny loves baked beans so we often have the tins knocking around – also good for repairing rat/mice dameage on sheds, chicken houses etc.
When the weather gets a bit cooler I’ll try this. Thanks!
I fill up the smallest Baked bean can with bird seed and fat from cooked chops etc. put it in the fridge till hard then remove the other side of the tin. You can then hang it from a branch by threading string through. Our birds do seem to prefer the shop bought fat balls but after a time they get used to the strange tins and devour the contents!
Hello Damian
Thank you so much for leaving this comment, I had no idea.
DO NOT use dessicated coconut for birds. It kills them.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/feeding/whatfood/index.aspx
Hi New top bird feeding
Great idea using oats!
I am new to feding bird as we had a cat until recently and I think that it’s cruel to feed birds with a good hunting cat like our was, now I am all about the birds I bought some coconut shells filled with fat for our birds and I will now refill them when they become empty, also I and going to try and do a sausage shape and fill the whole feeder instead of balls, do I feel lucky maybe, I read a a different site that you need to add porrage oates to make them shapable so hopefully I will be ok
On no account should netting be used – I know it is used a lot in shop bought balls, but small birds can get their claws caughtin the netting especially when the fst ball is getting smaller as it is eaten. More than once I have found the remains of a blue tit or great tit that had died struggling to get away.
i make my own in yoghurt pots, lard and throw in any left overs, cereals, bacon rind, cous cous, dried fruit, honey,,,, in fact anything,,,, the birds feast,,,
Hello Bluedog
That sounds like an amazing kit. Thank you. If anyone is interested in these kits I’ll pass your emails onto Bluedog.
Hi just thought i would share some of my thoughts about fatballs. If you take a fat ball and cut it in half it does not seem to contain much goodness.
So that set me thinking about making my own, after many attempts I came to the solution that most do. Suet is the answer.
I then needed a mould – finally settled on stainless steel tube, ok so im and engineer and that sort of material is no problem. I then made some end caps and moulded some with various seeds and nuts. That worked great but they needed to be compressed.
So once again being and engineer I used a valve spring compressor, sure I know you all dont have one of these – no worry all is solved later. Then came tricky part, how to get some plastic net and hooks. Well I did sort that too.
U may laugh but yes i bought 2000mts of it & 2000 hooks !!! (He must have a big garden or be off his rocker)
Seriously. I now have developed a kit of parts (Mould, endcaps, clamp, hooks & neeting) with instruction and recipes to make your own fatballs.
Ive called it “Fatzball” and the kit is avialable from me for £14.99 plus postage @ £3.25. If you would like to see photo of kit please email me. Ps yeh I know need to get rid of netting and hooks!!!!