Fat Ball For Birds
Our birds are finding it increasingly difficult to survive in our changing environment, and ever colder winters, causing many to die of starvation. We need to help them out by supplementing their dietswith bird food. Different species of birds have different dietary needs, so it is worth bearing this in mind when you leave food out; to attract a variety of birds you will need a range of different bird feeds. Also some are ground feeders; others prefer table feeding or hanging feeders.
Knocking up a gourmet meal for your birds couldn’t be easier, and making your own fat balls is cheaper than buying them readymade because you can use up all your scraps of food. Here’s how you do it:
1. First mix together all your scraps of food as well as nuts, seeds, left over meats (finely diced) and throw them into a bowl
2. Melt lard, suet or beef fat and pour it over the bowl of scraps
3. Leave it to stand and cool until it develops a pasty consistency
4. Form the mixture into a ball (be warned it can get your hands messy), you can also spoon the mix into coconut shells (scoop the coconut out first, it’s a good excuse for a pina colada) or recycle empty yoghurt pots by threading string through the pot and tying a knot at the base, then fill with the fat mix and snip the bottom of the pot off when it has set to create your own bird feeder
5. Place the mix into a mesh bag, and stick it in the fridge for about an hour to solidify
6. To invite woodpeckers and other insect feeding birds for a snack, hang the fat balls from a nail on a post or a branch on a tree (choose one that is close to the trunk)
If you want to offer a vegetarian option; why not bake a seed cake? The good thing about cooking for a feathered friend is that they are not fussy if you are not a domestic god(dess)! You will need:
75g of maize meal
Chopped nuts
Canary and millet seed
2 beaten eggs
1. First you need to add boiling water to the maize, nuts and seeds before stirring it all together until it combines.
2. Next you need to add 2 beaten eggs which helps to bind the ingredients together
3. Lay the concoction onto a cloth, and tie the cloth tightly
4. Put into an oven at bake for about 50 minutes at 175C/350F/Gas Mark 4
For a little bit of effort you will have happy birds with full bellies…another bonus of homemade fat balls is that you know they are fresh, whereas most bird feeds don’t have a sell by date on them.
Make sure you don’t use margarine or oil, mouldy, salty or alcoholic leftovers, and when you hang them out keep them out of reach of cats and other predators.
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