"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from undergroundbob contains
these words:


Hi all, sorry to be off topic, if you only want plant-related
discussion, read no further!

Over the winter I've regularly been making a birdy mix for the garden
with crumbs, old cake bits and mostly bacon fat from the grill. But I
have a vague worry - I've heard that birds can't process salt and I
wonder if it's possible that salt from the bacon stays in the fat?

Is this an irrational fear? Am I being daft? Or should I stop using
grill fat and stick to the Crisp n Dry?

Incidentally, the birds love it and the garden fills up within ten
minutes of it going out into my wee hanging containers.

Any opinions appreciated! Thanks, Bob

Bacon has other additives too. My butcher supplies on request (free)
big bags of fresh raw suet, the lumps of fat he hacks off beef
carcases. I bung it in a big pan and melt it down in the stove, remove
any undissolved gristle, and you have an ideal clear liquid fat for
mixing with crumbs, seeds, porridge oats, dried fruit etc. Pour it into
moulds and cool; it sets nice and hard. Birds love it.

Janet

I've done the same with what the butcher at the local store calls "meat
dust" which is just the fine ground meats and fats and bone dust and
everything else that they accumulate. I put mine in a loaf pan and bake it
down, and believe it or not, the woodpeckers adore it! The fat that cooks
off the "meat dust" I pour into another disposable aluminum pan and then I
use black sunflower seeds and make suet cakes for my many suet hangies.
They love the protein during these cold spells. g

maddie up on a cloudy, gloomy grayish-blue day of me birth,up on the ridge,
back in Faerie Holler, where my sweet Squire baked me an Amaretto birthday
cake with cherries for a smiley face! (not often we're the same age as the
year we're born)-- overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee