A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Hobbies, Crafts and Creativity The Bird Lovers Forum Home Made Suet Cakes a la' Cindy

here is the link to cindy's suet cakes AND the discussion around them. at the time, she had a "pet" crow named whiskey man. cindy is something else.


if i can, later, i will copy a paraphrase of the topic here.

WOW! Jiffy. that is a lot of info in there! I had no idea you could add ALL those things to suet feed. I feel a bit silly now about asking for a ratio mixture. ha ha.
Thanks so much, jiffy!

my pleasure

Cindy sent me a few of those one time. The birds love them.

I put mine out last night. the cardinals ate the seed on the table right beside the cake but wouldn't even try it. I brought it back in once it was dark, then put it back when the sun came up. I checked on it a bit ago to make sure it wasn't melting and the ants have found it!

Leave them out all the time. You don't have to bring them in. Cardinals will probably NOT eat suet. Woodpeckers, Mockingbirds, Wrens, Nuthatches, Chickadees, Starlings, and Grackles love it. In Winter Kinglets and perhaps Yellow-Rumped Warblers will eat it also.

we were just out on the porch and the cards came. the young male took one bite of the suet then flew off. hubby was laughing at me saying he went to throw up. ha ha. ok, good to know they probably won't eat it anyway.
I brought it in last night because I thought about the coons getting it. I was going to bring it in during the heat of the day cause I thought it might melt.
I know we have Woodpeckers, Mockingbirds, Wrens, Chickadees...but do we have those other birds here in texas?

You WILL have Starlings and Grackles. Nuthatches are iffy. You may get the Red-Breasted Nuthatches in Winter. The White-Breasted are much more common year-round across much of the U.S., EXCEPT for many areas of Texas. They appear to be in extreme northeast Texas, and would be found in heavily forested areas which are the types of habitat they prefer.

Cardinals may eat SOME suet, but they prefer plain Black Oil Sunflower seeds (BOSS). Lay it on a large flat area like a small table top. platform feeder, or the ground. Cardinals prefer to eat from a flat surface, not a tube or hanging feeder.

cool! I'm going to look up those birds. maybe I've seen them before, but just didn't know what they were.

I've been feeding these cardinals for several months now. it's a family of them that come and it has been so exciting watching the babies grow up. at first they had a neutral color beak but in the last month they have gotten their orange/yellow beaks. today for the first time I saw another youngster with a grey beak. I guess second 'litter'?
OH. and cricket learned a new bird!!!!!!!
Did they smell the suet, or just a coincidence???? I moved the suet from the table top I've been feeding the cards on, to the squirrel platform. (it's too runny to hang on a wire or string - I tried.) and we saw a new bird! carolina chickadee!
hubby just NOW called into me from the porch and NOW there is another 'new' bird....I know I looked that one up before but I don't remember which was which. he's eating the suet off the ground that dropped when I moved the cake.
he's grey, looks a bit like a dove w/o the big breast, and black spotted tips of the wings. yellowish legs. I'm having fun with this suet!

Get me a picture of the new bird. I can tell better that way.

Suet is GREAT and is one of the most overlooked foods that many bird lovers should, but don't use. They have little grren cages to hold the suet that you can hang from a tree branch or hook.

Here is My Mockingbird, Mr. Mocky on one of my suet feeders with a cake of suet in it.

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, MR. Mocky

great picture thorny!

yeah, I took that picture about a year ago with my daughter's camera.