My favorite blog, Fresh Eggs Daily posted an article today about making homemade suet for your chickens.  I’ve vaguely heard of Suet, but never really paid attention to it and basically just thought it was a “treat” for chickens who are pets and spoiled by their owners.  But suet is not just for pampered chickens!  Or at least all chickens should be pampered in this way.

Suet, if you didn’t know like I didn’t, is just raw beef or sheep fat (or I suppose it could probably be fat from another animal too).  It can be used for making candles or even as an ingredient in certain food recipes.

But we care about it because it is an important food for birds-wild and farm!  Suet is full of energy because it is of course full of fat.  Then you can also mix it with nuts, raisings, corn, insects, seeds, whatever your birds will eat.  It does melt at 100 degrees so it’s usually a winter treat, plus winter is the time when birds usually need the extra calories.  It’s hard to stay warm when it’s so cold, even here in the desert of southern california (and it does get cold although not like North Dakota cold).  My chickens have always been crappy layers over the winter and now I’m wondering if this would have made a difference.  Why didn’t I know about this before!!!!  They are definitely getting suet from now on.