Is it okay to put a chicken carcas or chicken fat out for the birds to eat?

Question

The bird table is 6foot from the ground so foxes and dogs will be unable to get to it. I thought you could feed fat balls to birds?

The bird table is 6foot from the ground so foxes and dogs will be unable to get to it. I thought you could feed fat balls to birds?

Answer 1

Yes, but it will attract carrion birds like crows, ravens, turkey vultures etc if it is an entire carcass.
If you use the fat to make a suet ball then all sorts of birds will eat that, jays, woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches etc and you wont attract large carrion birds which scare away some of the prettier winter songbirds.

How to make suet for the birds...

Suet, in its purest form, is simply animal fat. This food is high energy food with lots of calories that birds need, especially as the days and nights get colder.

If you'll trim off the fat from roasts or steaks before cooking or ask at the meat counter of your grocery store, you'll soon have a wonderful supply for the hungry birds. Slice the fat into strips and small pieces or grind it up. Keep the fat frozen in a bag or plastic container until it's needed.

Place the fat into a suet cage. Or save the mesh bags from onions to make great suet holders. Hang the suet cages or bags in numerous places throughout your yard where you can watch the variety of birds that will love to take a bite or two of this great energy food. Feed this type of suet during colder parts of the year since the fat can quickly become rancid during summer's hot days.

Suet can also be rendered, meaning melted down, then allowed to harden again. Think of when you cook bacon. The accumulated grease that stiffens in the cold pan is rendered bacon fat. Rendered suet will be more firm than simply cut up fat. It can be poured into a pan, cut up into pieces when firm, and frozen until needed. Place chunks into your suet cages or bags to delight the birds. Or push slightly hardened rendered suet into pinecones and hang them up.

Melted fat can also be mixed with a variety of ingredients from your kitchen pantry to make even more delicious suet mixtures. Nuts, raisins, peanut butter and dried fruit all make wonderful additions. Check the box in the upper right for some excellent and very easy ways to make gourmet suet for your backyard birds.

Since suet is especially tasty, it may attract more wildlife than you anticipate. Squirrels, raccoons, and sometimes hundreds of hungry starlings may find the suet tempting indeed. How do you save the suet for the birds you wish to attract? Try using one of the suet feeders where birds must feed from the bottom. Or put large chunks of suet and dry dog food in a mesh bag away from your other feeders to lure the starlings away from your yummy homemade suet.

Prepare to be amazed at the variety of birds that come to your yard to dine on your easy gourmet suet. Get a field guide and put it out on your deck or near a window. You'll probably need it to identify all of the new types of birds you'll see!

Answer 2

If you are talking about bones from a cooked chicken then yes good idea. Tie it to the bird table with string or better still in a net (big holes) so it cant be pushed off or fall off to endanger dogs or call the rats. A raw chicken will cause flies to lay eggs in it and then you will have maggots. My parrots eat cooked chicken and chews bones. Cooked chicken fat is good especially in the winter for those birds that need it for warmth and did not migrate. Not all birds eat chicken and fat, so the table still needs seeds and fruit.

Answer 3

no. It is a good way to spread disease.
The person above seems to not realise that live insects and the like have nothing to do with additive laden, antibiotic pumped, factory farmed chickens. If the chicken had a virus, like for instance avian flu, which wasn't killed by cooking, and the wild birds ate it, got the virus, then came to my place for a meal of bird seed on the bird tables, my whole flock of purebred show birds, including some rare breeds, AND my parrots, could all be wiped out! That would p1ss me off big time.

Answer 4

Grilled Chicken

Answer 5

No problem. Crows, magpies, gulls and even starlings will clean it up. Some of the commentators seem to have forgotten that meat proteins in the form of insects and small animals form a substantial part of most birds' diets.

Answer 6

Starlings , crows and seagulls will be attracted to the carcase OK . BUT you might attract rats as well, you can always try putting the carcase on top of a garden shed or garage.Yes birds eat birds have you watched crows and jackdaws attack young birds and eat them

Answer 7

yes the birds will love it with starlings leading the way.they may be a little wary at first but once use to it they will strip it clean.i have 200 plus budgerigars and they love a carcase in the avairy full of protein.you go for it and ignore the antis.

Answer 8

Why do you want to waste it like that? Cook it and eat it yourself, or better give it to your parents in law and tell them it is the newest reciepe from france...

Seriously, I wouldn't do it. Cats and all other kind of animals will get it first and then it becomes very dangerous for them...

Answer 9

yes its ok on a hieght but anything that falls on the ground can attract rats

Answer 10

They will eat it. It's sort of gross in a cannibalistic sort of way.