Homemade Suet Cakes

We love feeding our birds in the winter. Wild birds or chickens, we love watching them crowd around the seed and call in all of their friends :)

I decided to try and make my own suet using rendered beef tallow. To be honest, it was sorta gross! But I got the results I wanted, so I will do it again. I put the tallow in a slow cooker and let cook for a few hours. I then strained it into canning jars. The result worked out good!

I then decided to use the rendered tallow and make suet cakes. We have a huge 'following' of birds that congregate at the feeders. We also have 6 chickens.

I scooped out the tallow and added it to a saucepan. For this recipe, I used 2 pint jars of tallow.

Once this melted, I added in

1 cup of peanut butter, stirred that until it was blended and then added,

1 cup of sunflower seeds

1 cup of raisins

1 cup of pecans

3/4 cup or cornmeal

3/4 cup of wheat germ

Once blended I added it to a 9x13 parchment-paper lined baking pan

I let this cool overnight. The next morning, we cut them into squares!

We then gave 1 cake to our chickens and 1 to the wild birds. The verdict is in: chicken-approved :D