Making My Own Suet (or How to Really Stink Your House Up and Make Your Children Gag!)

I had read several articles and researched several recipes, so I felt prepared to attempt to make my very own suet.

It looked pretty easy. Melt fat and add lots of ingredients that birds like, such as nuts and seeds. No problem right?

I decided to use the packages of lard that have been at the bottom of my freezer since the last time we butchered a hog, say 3-4 years. (Somehow I never quite got around to using it!)

Do you have any idea what fat does when it sits in the freezer for a long time (say 3-4 years)? It gets rancid and very smelly. We discovered this as soon as I put the lard in a pot on the stove. The entire house was filled with the horrid smell of old fat. My children were running around with the noses plugged making gagging noises. I can’t blame them, I felt like it, too.

Thankfully the fat melted quickly and we could add the peanut butter, old wheat berries, and oatmeal to the pan. We mixed it quickly and poured it into an old cake pan to harden.

Once you got past the smell it actually went pretty well. They birds seemed to enjoy it, the chickens loved the scraps that fell off, and I got rid of some very old (say 3-4 years) lard.

I’d say it was a win-win for everybody (at least once the smell cleared out of the house)!