Apart from feeding your birds with seeds, another popular bird food that birders give is bird suet. This bird food usually uses lard as the main ingredient while mixing with other components to make an excellent recipe. However, apart from lard, you can also use peanut butter as the main ingredient and an excellent replacement for lard when making different kinds of bird food.
But how to make bird food with peanut butter? In this article, we will be presenting different ways to make bird foods using peanut butter as the main ingredient. It is absolutely a nutritious treat for the birds with its high-calorie content and fats, which provide birds with so much energy. As a longtime birder, I have seen a lot of birds that enjoy peanut-butter made bird food recipes.
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Making Bird Food with Peanut Butter
Feeding birds do not need to be a whole lot expensive. You can make a bird recipe without burning your pocket. Please take a look at some bird recipes for you to learn and to give to your feathered friends.
Recipe No. 1
In this recipe, you will need just simple ingredients apart from the usual peanut butter. You will be needing 2 cups of oatmeal, 2 cups cornmeal, 1 cup white floor, ⅓ cup sugar, and 1 ½ cups lard. These are just simple ingredients that you can readily purchase in the market. Prepare all the ingredients before starting to cook the bird recipe.
You can start by melting the peanut butter together with the lard in a low-heated pan. After a few minutes, you can mix all the remaining ingredients while still on low heat until all the ingredients are mix thoroughly.
After that, you can press the mixture to a square or rectangular cake pan until the mix should be around 1-inch thick. Use as many cake pans as you like until the mixture is fully transferred.
Once the transfer is complete, you will only need to freeze for one hour. Then, you will need to cut into the squares that will fit precisely into your feeder.
As a reminder, please continue freezing the bird food when it is still not being feed to the birds. You can store it in the fridge separated by wax paper until such time that it is ready to use in feeding all your feathered friends.
Recipe No. 2
This next recipe is a peanut butter suet made for birds. As usual, it uses peanut butter as the main ingredient but also other accessible and easy-to-get ingredients. For this recipe, you will need 1 ½ cups bird seeds, ¼ cup peanuts, ¼ cup dried fruits, and ½ cup peanut butter. It is excellent if you can find an all-natural peanut with no additives. Meanwhile, the peanuts should be raw and shelled. For the materials, you will need a mixing bowl, stirring spoon, and of course, the feeder.
The initial step is to get the large mixing bowl and put all the ingredients in it. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly until you see that the peanut butter will hold together all of them without excess globs. The mixture should also not be oily. Now, if you see that the ingredients are not sticking, you can gradually add a small amount of peanut butter until the mixture is sticky.
Once the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, set it aside and leave it in a cool and dry place. If you already want to feed the birds, you can spoon the mixture to the suet feeder and hand it outside.
Please take note to put the suet feeder in place with the exact temperature. This bird food is suitable for temperatures below 10℃ or 50℉. In addition, once the bird is done eating, you will need to clean the suet cage before refilling.
Recipe No. 3
It is said that suets are the best to feed during the winter and your feathered friends need an alternative for their food apart from bird seeds during the summer. And peanut butter is the best alternative food for the birds visiting your backyard during the sunny season. By far, this is the most straightforward recipe you can do with only two ingredients: peanut butter and cornmeal. For the ingredient’s measurement, you will only need one part peanut butter and five parts cornmeal.
Start by gathering all the materials you ingredients and the materials you need. For the equipment, you will need a mixing bowl and a stirring spoon. Make sure to use fresh and all-natural peanut butter and fresh cornmeal.
Once all the ingredients are prepared, you can now mix the peanut butter and the cornmeal in the mixing bowl. Make sure the mix all the ingredients thoroughly until they become sticky. The peanut butter should hold the mixture once they are properly mixed.
Once it is thoroughly mixed, set it aside in a cool and dry place. But once you are ready to feed the bird, you can put it in the bird feeder in your backyard. For woodpeckers, you can get a log and drilled it with small holes before hanging it outside. Stuff the bird food on the holes for the woodpecker to consume. You can also put in the crevices of a large pinecone if you have it in the backyard.
Even if I said earlier that this bird food is excellent to feed during the summer, this is actually an all-season mixture. This bird food can attract woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, and warblers. By far, this is the easiest recipe we have presented and is easy to make even for the young ones.
Conclusion
Learning how to make bird food with peanut butter is excellent information for birders who want to provide excellent foods for their feathered friends. Peanut butter is highly nutritious to wild birds because of its nutritional value, particularly protein content. It is also super-high in calories, giving the birds enough energy to do their daily activities quickly.