Home made wild-bird food

[BarryWhiteIsMyBrother]

There are lots of birds around here and I'd like to feed them. Whenever I bought seeds or nuts in the past they ended up going moldy (I've tried a number of feeders to no avail). I heard someone say whenever they are cooking and they have excess fat in the pan, they mix this with oats while it's still warm/soft, and then put it out. Supposedly this is delicious and very healthy for wild birds. Has anyone tried this? Do you have any other recipes I could try? I'm keen to try and help these little animals, especially now during the colder months. Thank you.

I've done it with lard and stuck it on pine cones, I used porridge oats and raisins because that's all I had. Hung it from a free and it was clean within a couple of days

And.cheese! Theres a how to on the RSPB site

Pine cones! We have lots in our garden. What a great idea for a carrier. I'll be making one at the weekend and see how it goes. Thank you.

You can pack it into a yoghurt pot with string and then pull.it out when it's solid so you can hang it up.

Or you can buy feeders that hang rAther than just seeds, or try fat balls in a cage.

I used to make bird pudding to put out when it was very cold. Melt a block of lard, when it’s cooled off a bit stir in dry porridge, breadcrumbs, broken up crusts, bits of bacon rind, meat fat, any dried fruit, muesli, any bird-edible scraps you have.

Transfer to a basin, leave to get cold, put big spoonfuls out on ground or bird table.

I don’t make it any more since we have several bird feeders that dh sees to, but it was always popular and nearly always attracted great spotted woodpeckers to the bird table very quickly. I swear they could smell the lard!