Making Homemade Bird Food

It's easy to keep birds coming into your yard year after year by making your own homemade bird food to leave around

We have a few recipes for you below to try, but don't forget that different species of birds have differing feeding habits and preferences.

If you cater your homemade bird food to these preferences, you'll be able to attract all the species that you want to your homemade bird feeders

Homemade Bird Feeder Suet Cakes

 

Ingredients

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup Bread Crumbs
• 1/2 cup Sunflower Seeds
• 1/2 cup Chopped nuts
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 pound suet

 

Method

1. In a small saucepan, cover the oats with water and cook until the oats soften.



2. Crumble up some pieces of stale bread and add oatmeal, raisins seeds and nuts. Then mix these ingredients together.



3. In a saucepan, melt the suet so it's soft enough to work with. Then pour the suet into the dry mixture and blend together well.



4. Leave the mixture to cool for a while until the suet is cool enough to handle.



5. Then form the bird food into balls.



6. Tie string around each ball and hang them from trees or place in bird feeders to attract the birds.

 

When making this home made bird food, it's fine to change or amend the types of fruit and berries you add to the mixture.

The best way to attract birds into your yard is to use fruits and berries and see what different species are attracted to the various fruits you leave out for them.

Many smaller birds, such as wrens, sparrows, cardinals, chickadees, bluebirds and thrushes love stale bread or stale cake crumbled up and mixed with peanut butter.

Homemade Bird Food Blocks

Ingredients

• Bread crumbs
• Apple
• Raisins
• Peanut butter
• Lard

 

Method

1. When making bird food blocks, the quantities of ingredients you use aren't important. Just be sure you use enough lard to bind the ingredients together so they'll form a block.



2. Chop up the apple into small pieces and crumble some stale bread or stale cake.



3. Place the ingredients into a mixing bowl and add raisins.



4. Melt the lard so it's soft enough to pour into the mixture.



5. Scoop around 1 tablespoon of peanut butter into the mixture and stir well to mix the ingredients thoroughly. They should form a dough that can be molded.



6. Line a small plastic container with grease-proof paper and press the bird food mixture into the base.



7. Leave in the fridge overnight to set.



8. When the bird food has set so it's hardened, remove it from the container and poke a hole through the center.



9. Tie some string through the hole and leave enough at one end to hang your bird food mold to a tree outside.

 

Birds will love this!

Homemade Hummingbird Nectar

There's nothing nicer that watching the hummingbirds hover around your flowers and shrubs.

Here's a recipe sure to attract them into your garden. You don't need to add coloring or honey to the mixture, as honey will end up attracting more ants than hummingbirds.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups water

Method

1. Bring the water to the boil in a small saucepan.



2. When it's boiling rapidly, add the sugar and stir well until the sugar dissolves.



3. Remove from the heat and leave aside to cool completely.



4. Then add the mixture to your hummingbird feeders.



5. Store any unused portions in a sealed container in the fridge.

 

We hope you enjoy these homemade bird food recipes and we'd love to hear what types of birds you attracted to your homemade bird feeders with these.