How to make fat ball bird feeders

I decided to give my feathery little garden friends an extra boost in the cold snap we're having and make some fat balls for them. It's easy to do and fun for kids - my daughter is only 18 onths old and she helped.

Step 1: Stuff I used.

The moulds were anything I could collect up - washed out yogurt and humous pots, some small jelly moulds, a couple of old baby bowls. You can use or recycle almost any kind of container - I did some with flat plastic trays that vegetables and meat came in to make slabs to go in the cage on my feeder.
I also used:
2 blocks of lard (cheap supermarket own brand)
A bag of dried mealworms
A bag of wild bird seed
An empty food tin, washed and dry
A ball of string
A pan of hot water
A large dish of cold water
Some cling film
A nice box and some tissue paper (optional!)

Comments

[millmore]

 Great idea. I'm going to give this a go today with some left over fat from a roast dinner.

[kittiekat]

Great instructable, would love to do this for the birds that visit my garden now that winter is approaching in the Southern Hemisphere..... Do you think you could add the size/weight of each ingredient in this step please? How big are the blocks of lard (250 grams? 500?) and how big are the mealworm / seed bags? Many thanks!

[PrincessBabycakes]

I am really sorry I have no idea how big the blocks were - I just bought the cheapest supermarket own brand ones I could find, I think I used 3 or maybe 4. I didint measure the seed or mealworms either - I had a large bag of both that I was just putting out on the bird table so used a few scoops of each.

[kittiekat]

Hi there, no probs, I bought 2 x 250 gr tubs of lard and a big bag of seeds and just did it all "by eye"! I had plenty of seed left that I'll just keep for my next batch :) I put the a couple of balls out the next day near my normal tube feeder, it took the birds a day or two to work out that they were food too, but once they did, they loved them and now keep fighting over them! Thanks for sharing, I'll be making a new batch soon! :) Here's a picture of the result

[jauncourt]

This is also a great project for kids to help with. My mom does this in winter, and one year my son got to "help" and then help put them out in the feeder for the few birds that stuck around.

[omnibot]

Good idea .. should come in handy when spring almost kicks in around here.

[popproject]

try to keep feeding birds throughout the winter months they have a hard time finding food. plus, just think of how popular your feeder will be in the spring!

[canida]

Mmmm, mealworms. ;) Those look excellent - I bet your birds love them.