Feeding birds from the kitchen with this cheap DIY bird feeder will attract a variety of birds to your homestead and give you some wonderful winter entertainment.
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Winter can be long and hard in Wisconsin. One of the simple joys many people enjoy is watching birds, but paying for bird seed these days can be really expensive. Because of this, we often can’t justify the cost of paying for bird seed week after week. Instead, we’ve come up with a more practical way to keep our feathered friends coming to our homestead day after day, giving us lots of entertainment. Yesterday, the kids bundled up with their binoculars, sat on the front porch, and giggled together as they watched for birds, trying to capture them with their camera. It was really quite cute and made my heart happy to see them enjoying the simple pleasures of nature with such joy! By feeding the birds from your kitchen, you can enjoy and watch the birds too without having to pay much money.
Table of Contents
- Birds to Expect
- Benefits of Feeding Birds from the Kitchen in Winter
- What to Use from the Kitchen to Feed the Birds
- Steps to Making this DIY Bird Feeder
- Cost of Making this DIY Bird Feeder
- Share this Post
- More Posts to Check Out
Birds to Expect
You will be able to enjoy a variety of birds with your DIY bird feeder, and you can expect some more than others depending on what you choose to include as your add-ins. Some birds you may encounter:
- Nuthatch
- Many Woodpeckers (including Downy, Hairy, Red Bellied, and even Pileated!)
- Chickadees
- Bluejays
- Juncos
- Goldfinches
- Redpoll
- Grossbeak
- Cardinal
Benefits of Feeding Birds from the Kitchen in Winter
Feeding birds from your kitchen in winter have benefits for both you and your feathered friends. For the birds, providing lard and other foods help them to replenish their energy stores that they need to stay warm and survive in the cold winter weather. Keeping these birds healthy through winter can have nice benefits in summer, too, as many of these birds keep unwanted insect pests at bay near your trees and garden. And as an added bonus, they also offer a beautiful soundtrack to your working day (even in winter- the sound of the chickadees on a sunny winter day is enough to lift anyone’s spirits!).
What to Use from the Kitchen to Feed the Birds
You don’t have to go and buy expensive bird seeds to attract birds to your winter homestead. In fact, you can feed the birds very cheaply with foods that you already have in your kitchen.
As a base, lard does a great job of providing the necessary fats that birds need for energy. It’s also relatively cheap, especially if you raise your own pigs. If you don’t, you can usually get it for a low price from a local butcher shop.
Other ingredients that are safe to feed the birds from your kitchen (or homestead) for this homemade bird feeder include:
- Cranberries
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Sunflower Seeds (black oil)
- Peanuts (unsalted)
- Peanut Butter
- Cracked Corn
- Raisins
- Oatmeal
- Air popped popcorn (no salt or butter)
- Egg shells
- Boiled Potatoes
- Apples
- Raspberries
- Blueberries
- Strawberries
Steps to Making this DIY Bird Feeder
This homemade bird feeder is really quite simple to make and takes just a few minutes to throw together.
Gather Supplies
For this bird feeder you’ll need:
- Rendered Lard, warmed to thick semi-liquid form- just enough to be workable (2 quarts is a good amount)
- Assorted add-ins (see kitchen foods to feed birds above)
- Cookie sheet
- String or yarn
- Aluminum foil or parchment paper
Process
- Line your cookie sheet with aluminum foil
- Pour semi-liquid lard onto your lined cookie sheet.
- Gently mix in your extra add-ins to the liquid lard. For mine, I used pumpkin seeds from our homestead and some cranberries I had frozen.
- Using a pencil or skewer, make a hole in the softened lard for a piece of yarn to go through.
- Score the lard into squares to make cutting after solidified easier.
- Place your cookie sheet in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to solidify lard again.
- Remove lard from freezer and cut through.
- Add a string to one of your lard squares and hang outside.
- Store the remaining squares in the freezer until ready for use.
Cost of Making this DIY Bird Feeder
This bird feeder is very inexpensive to make, especially if you have your own lard! We had everything here and it was either grown here or given to us for free, so this DIY bird feeder was completely free for us to make!
If you do need to purchase lard, you can buy some in bulk from Amazon here. Five gallons is going to last you a long time! If you’re interested in learning how to render lard yourself, check out this post.
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More Posts to Check Out
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