Choosing Fat Balls for Birds

Choosing fat balls for birds to eat during the winter months is one of the best ways to attract wild birds to your back yard. Birds need high calorie, nutrient rich food to stay healthy and warm in winter, and fat supplies extra energy during the hectic spring and summer as well. However, many commercially available feeding balls may cause more harm than good.

For example, some products come with plastic mesh bags, which are meant to be used to hang the ball from a hook or tree branch. Birds’ beaks, tongues, and claws can become trapped in fine mesh, resulting in injury or even death. Choose feeders with wide mesh, or no mesh at all.

Other feeder balls may contain ingredients that are potentially toxic to birds. Avoid using any feeder which contains preservatives, artificial coloring, or scent and flavor enhancers. Wild birds are not particularly picky about what their food tastes like, so avoid the temptation to spice up their food with exotic or artificial ingredients. Although pleasant for humans, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and table sugar should also be avoided.

You can make your own feeder balls if you like, and if you don’t mind making a little mess. Recipes vary, but most are based on lard, peanut butter, bird seed, and sometimes small berries or dried fruit. In spring, add some extra fruit, berries, and small nuts to the mix to supply extra energy for nesting and egg production. Clean, dry egg shells may be ground up and added to the mixture for extra calcium in areas where birds have been known to produce thin shelled eggs. For late season feeders, add extra fats and oily nuts to help birds gain weight to survive the cold weather. Specially made liquid vitamins may be added to the mixture as well. Your local pet shop or feed store can recommend the best products for wild birds in your area.

Other useful additions to your feeder balls are bits of straw, grit, and nesting material. You should add these items to only one small part of the outside of each ball. Birds will come to eat, and leave with a bit of building material.

Whether you use commercial or homemade balls, consider hanging them with a rope or placing them in a specially made bird feeder. Balls may also be placed on top of flat surfaces where birds like to gather, such as fence posts, bird baths, or even the roof of a shed. If you do not want to feed the neighborhood squirrels as well, try hanging the balls on a rope and placing an upside down, wide bowl at the top of the rope. Birds will be able to land on the rope or the balls themselves, but squirrels will slide off the top of the bowl when they attempt to reach the food.

Place the feeder where it will be protected from the weather, but still visible from a window. Low hanging branches are best. If you have a small pine in your yard, think about using fat balls for birds to make a holiday tree for both yourself and your feathered guests.