Suet is one of the most popular bird foods. It's the best food to attract woodpeckers. Other birds fond of suet are wrens, chickadees, nuthatches, kinglets, thrashers, creepers, cardinals, and starlings. Mixtures of suet and peanut butter may attract woodpeckers, goldfinches, juncos, cardinals, thrushes, jays, kinglets, bluebirds, wrens, and starlings.

Suet Log

Cut two or three good sized pieces of suet into small pieces, put them into a saucepan, over low heat and melt the liquid fat out. When there is enough liquid grease, put it into a clean soup can or dish, put suet back on stove and waited until more liquid comes out. Then mashed up the brown left-overs into the liquid and let it set.

Stuff soft suet in the holes of a log with perches with holes in it, or other such feeder. Hang on feeder pole. The woodpeckers and chickadees just love it.

4 1/2 cups ground fresh suet
3/4 cup dried and fine ground bakery goods
(whole-wheat or cracked-wheat bread or crackers are best)
1/2 cup shelled sunflower seeds
1/4 cup millet
1/4 cup dried and chopped fruit (currants, raisins, or berries)
3/4 cup dried and fine ground meat (optional)

Melt suet in a saucepan over low heat.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a large bowl.
Allow the suet to cool until slightly thickened, then stir it into the mixture in the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Pour or pack into forms or suet feeders; smear onto tree trunks or overhanging limbs and branches; or pack into pine cones.

1/2 lb. fresh ground suet
1/3 cup sunflower seed
2/3 cup wild bird seed (mix)
1/8 cup chopped peanuts
1/4 cup raisins

Melt suet in a saucepan over low heat. Allow it to cool thoroughly, then reheat it.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a large bowl.
Allow the suet to cool until slightly thickened, then stir it into the mixture in the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Pour into pie pan or form, or pack into suet feeders.
Optional or substitute ingredients: millet (or other birdseed), cornmeal, cooked noodles, chopped berries, dried fruit.

1 cup fresh ground suet
1 cup peanut butter
3 cups yellow corn meal
1/2 cup white or whole-wheat flour

Melt suet in a saucepan over low heat.
Add peanut butter, stirring until melted and well blended.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a large bowl.
Allow the suet-peanut-butter blend to cool until slightly thickened, then stir it into the mixture in the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Pour or pack into forms or suet feeders; smear onto tree trunks or overhanging limbs and branches; or pack into pine cones.

2 pounds fresh ground suet
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup coarse-chopped shelled sunflower seeds

Melt suet in a saucepan over low heat.
Add peanut butter, stirring until melted and well blended.
Stir in the sunflower seeds. Mix thoroughly.
Pour into 9 x 13 cake pan and cool
Cut into cakes that fit suet feeder
Individually wrap the remaining cakes and store in freezer

2 cup fresh ground suet
1 cup peanut butter
2 cups yellow corn meal
2 cups fine cracked corn

Melt suet in a saucepan over low heat. Allow it to cool thoroughly; then reheat it.
Add peanut butter, stirring until melted and well blended.
Add dry ingredients to the suet-peanut-butter blend, and mix well.
Pour into forms or suet-feeders, and cool until hardened.

Jesse Perez's Bird Cakes

Most of the time I just put out rendered suet, but for fun I use the following bird cake receipe:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup lard
2 cups quick cook oats
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar

Melt the peanut butter and lard and add remaining ingredients and cool.
Out of all the recipes that I have tried, this is by far the most popular in my yard. The Brown Thrashers hang upside down on the suet cage to get at it. It's a hilarious scene to watch!

This is so easy to make, and my birds love it...from woodpeckers to chickadees to thrashers to sparrows.

1 part peanut butter (I use crunchy)
1 part shortening
1 part flour
3 parts cornmeal
1 part cracked corn

I also add black oil sunflower seeds and/or mixed seed
As I say, it's very easy to make and quite a popular item. (Last year I was given some store-bought suet cakes, and my birds refused to eat them! I finally broke them apart and combined with the above recipe!)