cake mix (1 Viewer)

[minibits]

:hi: , this is my first message with Birdforum so here is hoping all goes well. My simple question is does anyone know a good cake mix for bird food. I have tried to mix seed with lard and it doesnt stick together and falls apart on the ground. Which in turn attracks the pigeons which i dont want. Any help would be great.
also the birds are slowly coming back into my garden, has anyone else noticed this or is it just me.

speak to you all soon

 

[Bill@dwp]

Hi Minibits and welcome to the forum

I think your best bet would be to repost on the garden feeding section. (Maybe a kind mod will even move the posting) You could also do a quick search as I'm sure I've seen some posting in the past with "recipes" in but can't be sure if they weren't from from our American bretheren.

Hope this helps and you enjoy your self on BF.

Regards

 

[turkish van]

Ah ha! A question I can actually answer! I used lard for a while and had the same problem, it didn't turn out properly and I had to scoop it all out they tray and squash it into the feeders. Then I tried it with a solid block of vegetable oil instead (I use Pura- additive free, in yellow packaging) and presto! I turned it upside down, gave it a wee nudge and it came out perfectly, just like the ones you buy in the shop. I'm thinking about starting my own business! A few months back I was making a tray and 2 or 3 half- coconut shells every couple of days, the birds love it. I add seeds, sunflower hearts, peanuts, oats, a few chopped raisins sometimes and maybe even some dried insects...yum! :eat: Just make sure you pack it down really hard into the mould.

Hope that helps.

 

[minibits]

Ah ha! A question I can actually answer! I used lard for a while and had the same problem, it didn't turn out properly and I had to scoop it all out they tray and squash it into the feeders. Then I tried it with a solid block of vegetable oil instead (I use Pura- additive free, in yellow packaging) and presto! I turned it upside down, gave it a wee nudge and it came out perfectly, just like the ones you buy in the shop. I'm thinking about starting my own business! A few months back I was making a tray and 2 or 3 half- coconut shells every couple of days, the birds love it. I add seeds, sunflower hearts, peanuts, oats, a few chopped raisins sometimes and maybe even some dried insects...yum! :eat: Just make sure you pack it down really hard into the mould.

Hope that helps.

spot on, i will give it a go and see what the outcome is. How do you get the insects for the cake mix? do you but the dried variety from the shops?
thanks again.

 

[Silvershark]

I use beef suet for making fatcakes, that sets nicely!

Ingredients I use:

Apple
Pears
Raisins
Sultanas
Currents
Bogena (insect/fruit mix for groundfeeders)
Sunflower hearts
Crushed mixed nuts

I did make a cake of black sunflower seeds but the birds werenm't impressed by that so I never made another one!

 

[turkish van]

You can buy tubs of dried insects in the pet shop. Or dried mealworms, if you can stomach it... Beware of the smell though. Kat- where do you get the beef suet from? A lot of people seem to use that but I've never been able to find it.

 

[Silvershark]

You can get it in the supermarket, but I go to the Makro warehouse and buy kilo boxes of it.

Any "original" labelled suet such as Atora are the beef suet and all the main supermarkets stock it, some along with their own brand which is cheeper. It's normally in the same section as flour in the supermarket.

 

[christineredgate]

Sponge cake made in the microwave goes down very well with my birds.Self raising flour,Syrup,butter/marg(supermarkets cheapest),milk,and a massive helping of sultanas.Baked on medium setting in a large plastic bowl for around 10 mins.goes down a treat!!!

 

[KC Foggin]

Hi there minibits and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:

I see you've gotten more than one suggestion and I believe there are other recipes in this particular forum as well. Enoy your time here.

 

[Bluetail]

I only supply birdcake in winter. I make it out of dripping (the rock-hard stuff you buy in supermarkets). I melt it in a saucepan and add finely ground peanuts (put through a blender) - as much as the dripping can take. I may crumble a slice or two of bread if I haven't enough peanuts. At my previous house the House Sparrows and Starlings - especially the Starlings - used to go wild over it. I don't get those where I live now, but the wintering Robin will eat it and so will the Dunnocks - unless a Blackcap arrives, in which case it tends to take over and chase everything else away!

 

[minibits]

thanks to all who have replied to my first and hopefully not last message. I will give the few cake mixes a go my other question i would like to ask is
Do the titbells work or can you use anything else like plastic pot etc. i have to think of ideas to stop pigeons eating the mix. I had to get rid of my bird table as i was getting tortures by thousand of pigeons. I didn't really mind but my neighbours did and they got the council out to have a word with me. hense the reason for the ways to feed the birds but keep away the pigeons. I have changed my feeding habits to mostly peanuts with a small feeder with the sunflower hearts as they dont leave any mess. My problem was that the birds were dropping so much out of the feeders and attracting the pigeons. Anyway enough of my stories on how i have had to put up with neighbours and pigeons, i dont whcih was worse.

thanks again to all.

 

[Silvershark]

I've found that the pigeons don't eat fat cake myself. Some that came in my garden went over for a look but were not impressed!

 

[Bill@dwp]

I used to have terrible problems as well with pigeons, they actually wrecked my bird table. I'd had a battle with them to keep them off it, lowering the roof, putting mesh on it, anything to keep them from getting at the food.
I found changes to the way I feed keeps them away in other than small numbers (6 tops). I moved to sunflower hearts, fat balls, niger seed, peanuts and just one tube with wild bird food in. There doesnt seem to be as much spillage that interests them, whereas the dunnocks robins and blackbirds still do OK, in fact they seem to be increasing.
The sparrows and starlings are ok as well, in fact we've got larger numbers. I
may get a few more over the winter but as we also get wood pigeons and collared doves (now up to about a dozen) they have competition.
I've made a note of the recipes and think I'll give it a go as well.

 

[Renee Redstart]

Hello there, minibits. Just seen this thread and although you've enough to be getting on with, I thought I'd add suggestions.
I feed home made fat cakes in the winter and they disappear very quickly. So quickly that it's a kitchen production line going.

I use the cheapest lard from the supermarket, melted and mixed with finely chopped peanuts (done in the food processor) together with an insectivorous mix. I had started with Bogena, suppliers varying in price but all quite expensive. I then found Prosecto Insectivorous (Haith's) when bought in large quantities isn't too dear. Kept in its bag under the stairs, it doesn't smell.

To make the fat cakes in, I bought a few tubular fatball holders quite cheaply and wrap these in foil. Spoon in the mixture and when it has set remove the foil. The holders are ready to hang up.

This lot keeps the large number of starlings fed as well as attracting a tiny newcomer; the Goldcrest.

Good luck with all this.

 

[turkish van]

As a mould I re-use the trays that the fat cakes you buy in the shops come in, and then they fit nicely in the feesers. You can also buy coconut shells full of fat mixture, which I re-fill as well. They work very well, and a couple of months back I lashed a little bit stick to the bottom of each one and I've seen greenfinches and robins perching on these. I tried filling a yoghurt pot once, but no-one went for it. Haven't tried titbells though.

 

[Alf King]

I read in a recent BTO guide the recommendation that we should use vegetable fats rather than animal ones as these are more readily digested by the birds.

Up till now my fat mixtures have always been lard based so I will need to give veggie fat a try. Does anyone have any specific experience of whether the birds show a preference?

Finally I always mix some flour with my fat asthe birds have seemed to like this combination.

 

[Liebchen]

Hi everyone,

According to the RSPB, animal fats should be used for birds. It's not that vegetable products are actually bad for them, but it's to do with how different fats are absorbed. It's to do with saturated fats which are higher in most animal fats then vegetable fats. Saturated fat because this is harder to oxidise supplies a slow release of energy essential to birds which are very active. Polyunsaturates are easily oxidised and burn up quicker which means that the birds need to feed more often. Saturated fats are not dangerous to birds because it rarely can be stored as body fat. ( not like in us humans). If there is a vegetable fat which is as high in saturated fat as animal fats are then I'm sure that would be fine to use. I did use vegetable fats last year for a very short period beginning of autum as there was a lard shortage for some reason and even beef dripping was scares. The starlings munched away on it quite happily.

I'm trying out lard mixed with half the amount of beef dripping to see if this makes the mixture harder. The softness of lard is not a problem in colder weather but when it's a bit warmer it can get a bit sticky. I don't think the birds mind like.

I tried lard cake and beef dripping cake beginning of this year and the lard one seemed to be prefered by the birds. I don't know whether this had to do with the fact that it was softer then the beef dripping cake or it just tasted better. I'll see how the lard/dripping mixture will go down with the birds.

Happy birdies, Liebchen

 

[Iain]

:hi: , this is my first message with Birdforum so here is hoping all goes well. My simple question is does anyone know a good cake mix for bird food. I have tried to mix seed with lard and it doesnt stick together and falls apart on the ground. Which in turn attracks the pigeons which i dont want. Any help would be great.
also the birds are slowly coming back into my garden, has anyone else noticed this or is it just me.

speak to you all soon

Can't beat Blue Peter for this kind of thing, though vegetable fat may be better than animal fat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/active/bakes/bake_birdcake.shtml

 

[Alf King]

Diddly dum dum dum......................

Never thought to look there for such information.

Liebchen's advice makes sense and is also intuitive certainly as far as insectivores and scavengers are concerned. I was confused when I read the original advice (which I can't track down now) and had always used lard/flour mixtures as a base in the past.

I don't think starlings can be used as a device for suitability for types of food as I've yet to find something that they won't eat, eventually.

 

[Liebchen]

I don't think starlings can be used as a device for suitability for types of food as I've yet to find something that they won't eat, eventually.

That's very true Alf. :t: Not much starlings don't eat! :'D

Liebchen