What's wrong with the fat balls? (1 Viewer)

[nickb]

fat balls

Hi all,

Interesting subject and I think that a lot of the problem is the fat starting to go mouldy, particularly when the garden centres etc sell in bulk, ie large tubs of 20+. I get no activity on any of these unless I break them up out of the nets and place on the table or ground and even then its limited. Within a matter of days they seem to smell off and soon after mould starts appearing so I throw them away, put a new one up and same problem in a few days.

I guess the answer is to make your own or buy selectively from a good source etc and remove from nets and place in suitable feeder.

Cheers
Nick

Hi Rin,

If you're listening out, I just thought I'd let you know what's happening here on the west coast - we get absolutely no starlings and although there are sparrows locally they don't venture as far as us.

We do get various tits - coal, great, blue and long tailed, as well as green finches, goldfinches, chaffinches, jays, gs woodpeckers dunnocks, robins, blackbirds, and even this morning, a pheasant.

I'm sure there are folk on this forum who live nearer to you who get a variety of species visiting them. Hopefully, yours will return too soon.

Regards, :t:

 

[deborah4]

:-O Birds love the new fat balls!

Since previous posts have been making my own fat mix - birds in garden have since increased, including new visits from pied wagtails, grey wagtails, and a song thrush. All, including blackbirds, robins and starlings feeding!

(This morning I put a freshly made batch out, unfortunately, herring gull swooped in and made off with the lot - even the squirrel didn't get a look in) - will have to grind up pieces even smaller, the gulls can stick to bread, its cheaper.

 

[Chris Oates]

After reading the good advice here I've started making fat mix too, I use lard (microwave melted in TV meal containers) and meusli mix with some raisins.
I feed from a wire cage suet feeder, blocks hung from string attached to a twig set inside the block - don't use it on a bird table or on the ground as I've seen a rat using my peanut feeder - I have to hang all my feeders from thin Fuschia branches which won't take the rats weight - he's given up now.
I find feeding fat has added interest for me as it's mainly used by the Thrush, Blackcap and Robin which now stay longer as they're not competing with the seed feeding birds.
Morning feeder watching has become much calmer (I'm a new feeder) - the birds are getting used to seeing me with not too many clothes on staring at them thro' a scope - more recent amusement from the Blackbirds & Thrush who come to the window and sit on my security light looking for me to go out and give them their chopped apples & raisins.
I put out ice cream containers as economy bird baths which have been very popular, sometime I'm going to have to sweep up all the leaf debris that the groundfeeders enjoy hunting through but the neighbours don't like walikng through.

 

[deborah4]

Hi Chris

Its the neighbours we scare off by our 'weird' garden birding! - mine probably think I'm certifiable - 'Honey, who is that strange woman in No 38 staring out the window wearing just a dressing gown and a pair of binoculars'?

Needless to say, Ive seen many a new pair of curtains go up in the neighbourhood recently!

How do 'your' thrushes and blackbirds get to the feeders? I think I need to design something a bit more sophisticated than tipping it out on the ground - mainly because of cats - but it so time consuming, the downfall of making your own suet mix. I like your recipe by the way - I put porridge oats, breadcrumbs and black sunflower seeds in mine.