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Years ago, before meat came in packages from the grocery store, butchers
often gave away bits of cow carcass that their human customers did not want
to eat. This is how many dogs got their bones.
The butcher was also a popular source for suet, which is a thick piece of
nearly pure white fat that is found behind a cow or steer's kidneys. Hung
outside, often in an old onion bag, it would provide high-calorie fuel for
small birds during the depths of winter. Because it was (in those days)
free, people didn't mind leaving it out for birds.
Today many people have trouble getting suet from a butcher (and if you can
find it, it's no longer free), so manufacturers have started offering it for
purchase suet in stores; it usually comes in the form of a square cake that
fits into a "suet holder" that you can also purchase.
I spent a lot of money on commercially prepared suet over the years,
believing that this was the ideal way to feed winter birds. But eventually I
realized that the custom of feeding suet arose more because suet used to be
free than because suet is necessarily the ideal food. As a matter of fact,
my readings suggest that almost any high-fat food will work just as well.
Through a process of trial and error, what I've found is that birds actually
seem to like peanut butter best. When you buy it in the giant jars in the
bulk foods section of the grocery store, peanut butter is also quite
inexpensive.
After discovering peanut butter, I went through several years in which I
tried combining it with other things, such as corn meal or dried fruit.
Eventually I concluded that this is unnecessary and just adds to mess around
the feeders, because the birds scatter what they don't like. So I just
started putting out straight peanut butter.
Some people are afraid to give birds straight peanut butter because they've
heard that the birds will choke. But I've investigated this and found no
evidence that this is likely to happen. As far as I know, most authorities
now consider this to be an urban legend.
The only concern in offering birds peanut butter or any other high-fat food
is that these foods should not be left outside in warm weather. Fats of all
types go rancid in heat. Rendering fat makes it keep better but is a
time-consuming and potentially dangerous process. I prefer to offer fatty
foods only when temperatures are below freezing.
Peanut butter can be offered in almost any container, including a suet
feeder. You can even spread it on things, as peanut butter sticks to almost
anything. Do not spread peanut butter on a live tree or shrub, however;
squirrels will chew through the bark as they try to get at the last of the
peanut butter.
In addition to offering peanut butter to the birds, I also continue to offer
the same foods I put out during the rest of the year. The food most
preferred by most birds that visit suspended feeders (those that are above
the ground) is black oil sunflower seed. Ground-feeding birds tend to like
millet and cracked corn; I often throw cheap bird seed on the driveway for
these birds, because cheap bird seed is mostly made up of millet. This
combination keeps a wide array of birds (chickadees, nuthatches, doves,
juncos, various sparrows, and various finches, to name a few) very happy
during the winter. The peanut butter may even attract woodpeckers and other
birds that ordinarily would eat mostly insects.
The above is taken from my blog, http://www.wildgardeners.com
Wild Flora
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<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>Years
ago, before meat came in packages from the grocery store, butchers often =
gave
away bits of cow carcass that their human customers did not want to eat. =
This
is how many dogs got their bones.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></=
span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>The
butcher was also a popular source for suet, which is a thick piece of =
nearly
pure white fat that is found behind a cow or steer's kidneys. Hung =
outside,
often in an old onion bag, it would provide high-calorie fuel for small =
birds
during the depths of winter. Because it was (in those days) free, people =
didn’t
mind leaving it out for birds.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></=
span></p>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><span =
style=3D'font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>Today
many people have trouble getting suet from a butcher (and if you can =
find it, it’s
no longer free), so manufacturers have started offering it for purchase =
suet in
stores; it usually comes in the form of a square cake that fits into a
"suet holder