The Kingsyard Recycled Plastic Tail Prop Suet Feeder, like all tail prop feeders, provides an added “paddle” for extra stability and balance for feeding birds, especially woodpeckers like this Red-bellied Woodpecker. Duncraft’s Eco-Strong Upside Down Suet Feeder is the newest suet feeding option, which is effective in eliminating starlings from dominating your suet feeder. A great example of a combination feeder is Duncraft’s Grandview Double Hopper Feeder with Suet Cages that allows you to offer 2 kinds of seed and 2 kinds of suet.

Once a simple winter staple, Suet has become a year-round anchor for any feeding station north to south, west to east. Today, suet varieties have expanded and progressed in ways that seeds and other birds foods really can’t with a variety of ingredients added and improvements ranging from no-melt suet to hot pepper suet to super suet. The bird feeding industry has made great strides in the variety and quality of suet available for birders to select for birds they attract at their feeding station. And as we all know, suet becomes particularly important during winter when birds that remain in colder latitudes need high-calorie foods.

Providing suet is easy, and economical too. Most birders only replace a suet cake every week or two, depending on the number of birds that are utilizing suet at the feeding station. Anytime and anywhere, Suet should be a standard at any feeding station, with no-melt suet a preferred option for many birders. Today there are many different suet mixes and ingredients you can choose from ranging from berries to nuts and seeds, and more. But it’s important to watch out for filler additives such as cracked corn and milo seeds that tend to provide low food value to birds and attract small mammals and House Sparrows that many people prefer to avoid. It’s best to be aware of the ingredients and shop accordingly.

Hot pepper has added another dimension to suet options for birders who have “squirrel problems,” because it is the answer to keeping small mammals away from your suet offerings. The hot pepper additive is unpalatable for squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles, and other mammals, while birds are not affected. It’s appearance on the market was a positive turning point for many birders.

The current apex of suet development must be the SuperSuet, created by WildBirds Unlimited (WBU), which is a suet mixture that provides birds with the highest level of protein and fat by blending beef fat with roasted peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnuts, and calcium (calcium supports healthy bones and egg development). WBU stores and online sales also offer No-Melt SuperSuet cakes and Hot Pepper SuperSuet cakes.

Maybe the best suet-like bird food is Bark Butter, another Wild Birds Unlimited creation. It’s a unique blend of suet, peanut butter, and other ingredients that can be spread on tree bark – hence its name – although it’s also available in pellets that can be provided in a hopper feeder or platform feeder. And the newest twist to Bark Butter is the Bark Butter Brick, which is a No-Melt cake of Bark Butter that can be used anywhere any time of the year and offered in a standard square suet feeder.

So as you can see, providing suet can be as simple or complex as you ever imagined, but the importance as a feeding station standard is unquestionable, and while the classic suet recipes are great, we’ve come a long way baby.

Suet Feeders

The simplest and least expensive suet feeder is a standard wire cage suet feeder that only costs a couple bucks and holds a square suet cake, which is the standard for providing suet at most feeding stations. But like suet recipes, suet feeders have been improved, with the best option being a tail prop suet feeder. Because the variety of woodpeckers tend to be the most common suet eaters in most areas, the added length of a tail prop at the bottom of a suet cage makes a big difference for the accessibility of woodpeckers, nuthatches, and other birds.

If you have ever watched a woodpecker eating suet at a cage feeder, you know how they seem to struggle with where to position their specially adapted tail feathers, which woodpeckers use as an important balancing feature as they forage on tree trunks, branches, and other structures. Some companies have even taken tail prop feeders to the next level by creating an extra-long tail prop for the largest woodpeckers – Pileated Woodpeckers.

Another newer suet feeder option is an Upside Down Suet Feeder, that positions a suet cage horizontally under a roofed top. These specialized suet feeders are especially popular among birders who have a problem with starlings dominating their suet offerings – starlings will not hang upside down to feed, while many other birds can.

Another newer suet feeder option is a Combination Feeder that features 1 or 2 suet cages attached to the sides or beneath a rectangular hopper feeder. These feeders provide a single feeder option to having several feeders, which is especially true if the hopper feeder is divided into 2 compartments, which allows you to provide black oil sunflower seeds, thistle seeds, and suet all in the same feeder – a self-contained feeding station all in one feeder!

At that point all you need to offer is fresh water, which attracts the greatest variety of birds any time during any season. But suet is probably the number 2 attraction for birds year-round. Suet shouldn’t be an after-thought, it should be an important consideration now and throughout the year, one that becomes ever-more important as winter weather advances.

Enjoy all the birds that fill minutes of your days with insights into nature with a variety of interesting activities – right outside your windows. What a great part of being a birder!

For more information about suets and suet feeders, refer to Suet Feeder & Seed Cake Feeders: Suet Feeders, Wild Bird Suet, Squirrel Proof Suet Feeders (duncraft.com) and SuperSuet™ (wbu.com)

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