Attract Humming Birds With Nectar Like the Cliff Swallows to Capistrano!

Hummingbird Nectar Recipe

Here's the recipe for hummingbird syrup.

• Boil four cups of water and remove from heat.
• Stir in one cup of white sugar.
• Cool the syrup before filling feeder.
• NOTE: Do not use honey, which can cause a fatal fungal infection on the birds' tongues.
• NOTE: Do not add food coloring to the solution. It's not necessary, and it may be harmful. Even a small spot of red on the feeder will attract hummingbirds.
• You can store the extra syrup in the refrigerator for a week.

Hang the feeder where you can see it from a window. Clean the feeder at least once a week. In warm weather, you may need to change the syrup and wash out the feeder every day. Don't let the syrup turn cloudy in the feeder — that's mold. It will make hummingbirds avoid your feeder, and it may make them sick. If ants discover the feeder, discourage them by applying petroleum jelly to the wire that suspends the feeder. Or suspend a cup of water above the feeder. Homemade Bird Suet Recipes These homemade bird suet recipes can attract all sorts of birds to your yard, including titmice, juncos, wrens, chickadees and woodpeckers. While suet, the fat around the kidneys and loins of sheep and cows, may not be an integral part or even a small part of your diet, suet is a terrific binding agent for treats for birds.

Homemade Bird Suet Recipes

Peanut Butter Cakes
1 lb chopped suet
¼ cup peanut butter, crunchy
¼ cup sunflower seeds, shelled and slightly chopped

Melt suet over low heat. Add peanut butter. Stir until melted and combined. Add sunflower seeds and stir. Pour into mold, pie pan or muffin tins Cut as needed. Store leftovers in the freezer until you need them.

Yummy in the Birdie's Tummy
1 lb rendered suet
2/3 cup black oil sunflower seeds
¼ cup chopped nuts
1 1/3 cup wild bird seed mix

To render the suet: Place chopped suet in a sauce pan over low to medium heat. Cook until the fat turns into liquid. Strain through fine cheesecloth and let harden. Repeat cooking and straining.
Mix together all other ingredients. Add the suet and combine well. Pour into molds, cake pans or pie pans and let cool. Cut to size and freeze leftovers for later use.

Suet Pest Problems Solved

Capsaicin is the chemical compound found in chili peppers that makes them hot to mammalian taste buds. Since birds are the main propagators of chili pepper seeds, they have exceptionally high tolerances to capsaicin 'pain' effects. However, mammalian rodents will find the spicy suet unbearable and unpleasing. If you have a problem with unwanted rodents feeding on your suet, when making these recipes add 4-8 teaspoons capsaicin during the suet rendering process. Adding a few chili, jalapeno, or habanero peppers will do the trick. No need to test the Scoville heat units, you should be fine.
When adding capsaicin to birdseed, a water reduction of chili peppers and their seeds added to a bag of birdseed mix will result in a reduction of rodent pests. If the concocting of heat serums for your birdseed and suet is not for you, we have spicy birdseed and suets available for purchase through our on-line store today.