Birds rely on a combination of grains, fats and proteins to support a healthy diet, and they usually find these items on their own in the wild. However, people who raise or feed birds usually need to improvise in order to ensure that they are not being malnourished. One of the most-common ways to accomplish this is by making suet, and chances are that you can benefit from providing some to your local bird population as well.
What is Suet?
Suet is a combination of animal fats, seeds, insects, or other ingredients that the birds in question normally eat. It is processed into cubes or balls, allowed to harden, and placed in areas where birds feed. One brick of suet can last up to a week, and it is very easy to make.
Why Would I Want to Feed Birds?
Attracting birds to your homestead or back yard can fortify your entire local ecosystem and make your little corner of the world more productive. Plants can flourish, pests can be controlled, and birds, or the animals they attract, may serve as an emergency source of protein during a survival situation. These are just a few examples of many benefits associated with having birds around, and a little bit of suet may be all that is needed to attract them and keep ’em coming back for more.
Basic Suet Recipe
The first step in any suet recipe is to render some fat that will act as the main food source while also holding the rest of the ingredients together. All you need to do is take fat that is free from large pieces of meat or bone fragments, cut it into small pieces, and place them in a saucepan. Let it melt over medium-low heat before straining the liquid to remove any particles. Pour the fat into molds and incorporate the other ingredients into the mix until it hardens. You can either refrigerate, freeze or let the suet harden at room temperature. You can also use any trimming you like, whether from poultry or meat, and drippings from cooking are just as good as well.
If you don’t have a lot of fat available, you can substitute it with a little bit of peanut butter. However, you’ll need to add in a greater ratio of seeds and other solids to help the suet retain its shape. In all cases, most homemade suet should be used during the cold weather months to prevent the pieces from going rancid, but you can find commercial products that can be used during the summer as well.
Adapting Recipes
Remember that different birds in your area will have different meal preferences, so it’s important to adapt the suet to suit their tastes based on the ones that you want to attract. If you don’t have access to grains and seeds that can be thrown into the mix, consider using wheat flour, cornmeal, chopped nuts and even dried bits of fruit as alternatives. The sky’s the limit in terms of what ingredients you can include in the suet, as long as it reflects items that birds normally eat.
Start experimenting with suet, and see how it can have a positive impact on the health and productivity of your homestead or survival yard. Take what you learn and find a way to adapt it to a wilderness survival situation as well. Using suet is a great way to attract birds and other small game that are suitable for consumption in the field, and it can make hunting or foraging for food a lot more-efficient during a crisis. Who knew that something so simple could produce so many benefits, and this is definitely something worth adding to your preparedness bag of tricks.
