When it comes to bird foods, the most popular is probably the birdseed because it’s readily accessible, and there is no need for a lot of preparation. All you have to do is buy them then put them on your bird feeder for your feathery friends to consume. However, you can also put some variety when it comes to giving bird foods by giving them something different. One of which is to used ingredients found in our kitchen, such as oatmeal.
But how to make bird food with oatmeal? If you are not familiar, oatmeal is an excellent source of nutrition for birds. Plus the fact it is affordable and is readily available in most kitchens making it an excellent part of making nutritious bird food. So, if you want to get rid of your unused oats in the kitchen, read this article to learn to make bird food using oatmeal as an ingredient.
Contents
Making a Bird Food Using an Oatmeal
Recipe No. 1
While you can just simply put uncooked oatmeal into the bird feeder, you can allocate your time to use the oatmeal into a suet cake. You can use additional ingredients for this recipe, such as suet or lard, dried fruits, and chopped nuts. If you are making this recipe in the winter season, your feathered friends are in for a fatty treat in the cold environment.
- To make the bird food, start by melting a single cup of suet or lard in a pot. Then, you will need to mix two cups of oatmeal into the pot and mix accordingly. Wait until the oatmeal is cooked to proceed to the next step.
- After that, you can now add the dried fruits and chopped nuts and mixed accordingly. You will need to mix it well until you achieve the best results. Always remember to keep the ratio of the suet or lard to the dry ingredients to a single part to two parts.
- Once the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, let the ingredients cool to the touched. Then, you will need to squeeze into a rough ball shape using your hands. Then, allow the ball to cool, so it holds its rounded shape.
- After forming the bird food into a round shape, you can cut the ball into wedges. Once everything is cut, you can now serve the food to the birds.
Recipe No. 2
In this following recipe, you will be combining the oatmeal with the other bird foods to form an excellent and nutritious food for them. But this time, you will be using rolled oats as one of the ingredients. So, apart from the oatmeal, you will need dried fruit, sunflower seeds, and chopped nuts. For dried fruits, you can use raisins, cranberries, or just any available dried fruits in your kitchen.
- The first step is to gather all ingredients and make sure that everything is of excellent quality. For the dried fruits, cranberries and raisins are excellent choices, but you can use other fruits as well.
- Then, you will need to mix all the ingredients together. In terms of quantity, it does not really matter how much each ingredient’s measurement is, but my preference is to have more oats compared to the other ingredients. Make sure to mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
- After mixing, you can now spread the seed mixture into the bird feeder and let the birds enjoy your recipe. But please expect to have other visitors to come in your feeders, such as squirrels and other rodents. But make sure to be prepared how to deal with these unwanted animals apart from the birds.
Recipe No. 3
This next bird food recipe is about cooking a pudding for woodpeckers. So, if woodpeckers are frequent visitors to your backyard, I suggest looking at this recipe for your birds to consume. For the ingredients, you will need 8 pounds of suet, 2 pounds peanut butter, an 8-ounce bottle of corn syrup, and 2 pounds of rolled oats.
- Start by melting the suit in a canning kettle or any other large pot. Once the ingredient is fully melted, you can transfer the melted fat to another kettle to let it cool down.
- After transferring and while the fat is still hot, you can add peanut butter, corn syrup, and oats. You can stir the mixture until such time that all of the ingredients are well-blended. Please continue stirring until such time that everything is mixed thoroughly.
- The next step is to put the mixture of pudding in old soup cans. The purpose of doing this step is to cool the pudding down and harden it eventually. You can set it aside after by storing it in a cool, dry place. If you want to use it, you can warm the pudding until it is soft enough to be given to the birds.
- Once the recipe is prepared, the next step is to prepare a birch log that will serve as a feeder for the woodpecker. You can drill a number of 1 ½ inch holes in a 4-inch diameter birch log. I suggest leaving the bark for the birds to have toeholds once it comes to the log. Once you finished drilling the holes, you can start spreading the pudding into the holes. You can start hanging the log outdoors where it is accessible to the woodpeckers.
Conclusion
Learning how to make bird food with oatmeal is excellent knowledge to have as a bird watcher. I have presented three different bird foods is using oatmeal as one of the ingredients. The best thing about oatmeal is it gives a lot of nutritional value to the birds. In fact, oats are not only nutritious but healthy and inexpensive alternative food for the birds.