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How to Make a Great Suet Feeder

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Thousands of bird enthusiasts include suet with rations of seed to attract more species to their yards. Lately, suet has become more expensive, and without some control of consumption, the depredations of crows, starlings, squirrels, grackles, and raccoons can tax donor generosity. If you are not getting good mileage with those blocks of suet-cum-birdseed sold by the pet shops and mail-order houses, or if your homestyle offerings tend to vanish overnight, you can remedy the situation with a dollar's worth of material and an hour of mechanical brilliance. All you need is some wire screen and a few hand tools.

Hardware and feed stores usually stock galvanized wire screen in several mesh sizes and widths. It is sold off large rolls by the running foot or by the square foot. For this project, ask for half-inch mesh and try to obtain a one-foot length of the 24-inch wide product. In addition to the screen you will need side-cutters, a ruler, long-nose pliers, three feet of soft 20-gauge galvanized steel wire, and three half-inch diameter split rings.

Flatten the screen and check dimensions to insure that your starting piece measures 12 by 24 inches. If you were successful in purchasing 24-inch wide material, it is likely that the 12-inch dimension will be slightly oversize. If so, trim the piece back to a longitudinal wire nearest this number.

Study Figure 1, then cut the screen outside longitudinal and horizontal wires to avoid rows of long projections along the edges of the work. Save the 2 by 13-inch sections, one of which will become a top for the feeder.

Figure 2 shows how the body of the feeder is shaped with four 90 degree bends. Straight lines in bending mean neat corners and a good fit along bottom and sides. Position the screen with Line A along the side of your work bench. Clamp the screen to the bench manually with whatever is being used as a straightedge and fold the screen up against it. Hold the work to the bench tightly so it will not slip, and try to form the sharpest possible bend using heavy hand pressure. Repeat this operation on Lines B, C, and D in order.

Starting at the top of the feeder, line up the newly formed back and side panels. With convenient lengths of 20-gauge wire, and the long-nose pliers, close the corners snugly using an overcast stitch through each square opening as illustrated in Figure 3.

A top for the feeder is made by trimming one of the cutouts mentioned earlier to 1-1/2 inches wide and 11 inches long. Ninety-degree bends 1-1/2 inch from each end finish this component, which is assembled to the basket with the three half-inch diameter split rings as hinges. Ordinary paper or plastic coated wire twists are practical closures.

It happens that this feeder is deep enough to frustrate a hungry raccoon if it were successful in getting an arm under the lid. The steel mesh is a great obstacle for squirrels, opossums, and raccoons in that they cannot reach through or gnaw holes as they do with some commercial feeders. If starlings and grackles are bothersome in your area, these birds can be discouraged by fabricating a feeder using finer mesh screen, say one-quarter inch.

My suet feeder is suspended from a nail in a big oak tree, near water and a barrel-type seed dispenser. The action here is continual, and the suet has become a popular stop for downy, hairy, and red-bellied woodpeckers.