Feeding chickens suet can help alleviate boredom and pecking behaviors in their flock while providing a valuable source of protein and fat, especially during winter.
Use a silicone mold to craft homemade suet cakes at home! Add unsalted peanuts as the main ingredient and customize your cake by including other components like cranberries, raisins or seeds according to your personal taste.
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1. Chickens love it
Chickens love treats like bread, pies, cookies and chocolate but suet is their go-to treat. Packed full of proteins, fats and carbohydrates essential to their well-being as laying hens, it provides important nutrients.
Suet cakes provide birds with a quick and convenient source of calories that will keep them warm throughout winter months. Suet cakes also make an ideal treat for molting birds as their bodies require additional protein for feather growth.
These delectable treats can be created using lard, meat drippings or coconut oil as binding agents to form a shape and fill it with dried fruits, vegetables, whole grains and spices such as cinnamon (great for respiratory health), cayenne pepper and brewer’s yeast with garlic (helps increase egg production) to create something you will truly love eating! You could even try including dried mealworms and grubs to add extra protein!
2. It’s easy to make
Have you seen square suet cakes at feeder stations? To replicate these at home, use a muffin pan lined with parchment paper as a mold.
Suet cakes (or lard cakes) can be filled with seeds, nuts, fruits and even insects like mealworms to provide food for molting birds that contain animal fat which helps restore feathers quickly. Suet cakes also make great treats for helping hens regain their plumage after they shed them during molting periods.
Suet preparation requires using high quality fat sources like tallow or lard for optimal results. Melted vegetable oils or fats such as bacon drippings or hamburger grease may leave your suet looking mushy and rancid; green potatoes contain harmful toxins which could harm chickens if added into the mixture.
3. It’s a great source of protein
Suet can provide chickens with an abundance of protein during the cold months when their energy requirements increase due to staying warm. But too much fat overloading their livers and leading to health complications is harmful – therefore it’s essential that their intake be managed appropriately.
Commercial suet blocks come in many shapes to fit different feeders, as well as nuggets and cakes that contain ingredients like sunflower seeds, peanuts, grains like wheat or barley and cracked corn.
DIY suet for your chickens can be tailored specifically to their needs, using ingredients such as black oil sunflower seeds containing high levels of lysine for feather growth promotion and dried grubs packed with protein for supporting molting.
4. It’s good for their feathers
Suet is an invaluable source of animal fat for birds. They use it both immediately for energy needs as well as stockpiling food reserves that will come in handy during times of food scarcity during winter.
Chickens preen, or apply an oily wax coating to their feathers, in order to maintain suppleness and repel dirt and water. They do this by running their beak through their feathers which stimulates their uropygial gland.
Birds enjoy eating suet year-round, but its benefits become especially apparent during fall and winter when energy demands are highest. Just make sure it’s placed in a cage feeder or other type of open suet feeder to protect it from going rancid in warm environments; raw suet is particularly at risk when exposed to high temperatures; soft or squishy suet could coat belly feathers making them less efficient at trapping air.
5. It’s good for their health
Suet is a hard white fat harvested from cattle or sheep kidneys and loins that contains both saturated and monounsaturated fats, making it easily metabolized by birds, providing instant energy as well as reserves that can be utilized when food resources become more limited.
Chickens don’t naturally encounter suet in their natural environments, but they will still take it when offered as it makes an excellent treat and helps meet winter energy requirements. Too much fat may cause problems for internal organs; thus only provide in small amounts occasionally. You can make your own suet cakes at home or purchase store bought ones containing added nutrition for your flock.
