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Suet cakes in winter

flipper
24/11/2014 17:51

Does anyone else find that the birds go off their store-bought suet cakes,when the weather starts to get colder? During the summer,I can go through 2 or 3 a day,but it tails off to the point where the cake has been there a couple of weeks and I'm wondering whether I should be throwing it out. I don't have this problem with my homemade lard ones btw. 

  • 0 25/11/2014 01:04

    Hi Flipper,  I don't often buy suet cakes but it seems when I do the birds are fussy about some makes so I also find it best to make my own although I tend to use homemade raw cheese pastry instead.    I find the suet pellets are far more popular with the birds than the suet cakes so I've stopped buying them now and stick to the pellets and pastry.

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    Regards, Hazel 

  • 0 25/11/2014 01:36 in reply to HAZY

    I have a bit of everything in my garden,including pellets. Maybe I should be grateful,I'm not having to spend as much at the moment. Just find it strange how they're popular in the summer,but not so much in the winter,when you'd think they'd be devouring them more. Maybe I should get my finger out and start making more of my own. Just don't like all the washing-up haha :-)

  • 0 28/01/2023 10:58
    Hi I'm not sure if this will help, or whether it's still an open thread being from 2014 but someone might read this like me lol, I think the store-bought suet cakes are dense I think they use more flour or cornmeal or whatever ingredient they use, it's denser (it's harder, more compact) than the texture of lard type homemade suet cakes and once the weather starts getting colder near freezing point they become too hard for the birds beaks to pick at and feed on, and if you try to push your thumbnail into a nearly frozen shop bought suet cake in winter temps it's like a brick, the lower temps make suet harder, making it impossible for birds to eat them or hard to even push your fingernail into them (you could possibly grate them with a cheese grater to use them up or grind them to crumbs or crumble them down with a mallet. So I stick to my homemade lard cakes for very low winter temps and in spring when the temps start to rise I use shop-bought ones for summer and my homemade lard-type cakes that still are soft enough for the birds to peck into and eat when the store ones are too hard for the birds to eat