The-Artistic-Garden's Blog

Bird Suet Recipes With Peanut Butter as an Ingredient are Not Dangerous

I received a comment from Consuelo on a previous post about making your own bird suet. She wanted to share information she’d found about peanut butter being potentially dangerous to certain bird species. Peanut butter is one of the ingredients I recommend using for the suet recipe.

I’d like to add a more detailed response to her comment here in a post, so that it properly addresses this subject and provides more information for those of you who perhaps have landed here, looking for information about “potential hazards of using peanut butter in a bird suet recipe”.

If You Are Really Concerned About a Bird Choking On Peanut Butter …Then Do Not Feed Peanut Butter All By Itself! Add a Gritty Ingredient as Well

Through my research to determine if what Consuelo shared was correct information or not, and of course to educate myself about the “hazards of feeding peanut butter to birds”, the bottom line from all trusted authority sites is:

There is no documented evidence that birds will choke (or die) from ingesting peanut butter all by itself. However, mixing peanut butter with grit or cornmeal or oatmeal will break up the stickiness and can give peace of mind to those who might be
concerned.

My recipe calls for cornmeal. So, in my humble opinion, there is nothing “dangerous” about any bird suet cake that has peanut butter as an ingredient if that cake also has a “gritty” ingredient, too.

More Resource Links With Information About Peanut Butter in Bird Suet Recipes

Everyone, please take a look at the following information I have uncovered from very reliable sources. Come to your own conclusions, but I believe you need not worry one bit about adding peanut butter into a recipe for making suet cakes.

Here are just a few of the better links I discovered with not only information about peanut butter in suet, but other great bird feeding information as well:

• Bird Feeding Basics from the National Audubon Society. Please look at the topic: “Mix peanut butter and corn meal”
• Backyard Bird Feeding from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Conservation Library. Look about 3/4’s of the way down to: “Can birds choke on peanut butter?”
• Feeding the Birds from the Massachusetts Audubon Society. About 1/3 of the way down, look for the topic: “Peanut Butter”.

There … with the above information I’ve provided I do hope the issue of feeding peanut butter to our backyard birds, whether it’s an ingredient in a store bought suet cake or in a homemade bird suet recipe, will no longer be a concern for anyone. Happy birding!

For Those of You Wondering About How Large
a Hypertufa or Concrete Sculpture Can Be …

I get asked just how large you can make a hypertufa or concrete garden art object more than a couple times each month, and my standard answer to everyone is simply, “As large as YOU are capable of making it.”

I’m not trying to be smart or curt with that reply, but honestly, my answer is the truth. After all, if you can dream up the idea, and you have the skills and know-how to figure out how you’re going to construct the frame on which to apply your ‘tufa or concrete recipe … then by all means, go ahead and tackle the project. The size factor is basically not a big stumbling block if you know what you’re doing.

But the core issue is: do you know how to properly construct a super-sturdy frame (also called a form) that is capable of not only providing the proper surface on which you’ll be applying your wet recipe, but will of course remain firmly connected over time? Yes, you could argue that once a hypertufa or concrete mixture is cured, it pretty much has the framework “sealed” in quite well. But, depending upon the intricacy of your form – do you have slender appendages coming out from the central frame, as one example – you really ought not rely solely on the rock-hard nature of your cured recipe to be the only “glue” that bonds everything together.

So … as a bit of inspiration for you today, I thought I’d share a photo from the website of Little and Lewis, who are maestros in the art of sculpting with concrete.

If you’re not familiar with their work, I’d certainly take a little time to peruse their site. You will certainly see garden art items that ought to make you say, “Wow!”

This concrete sculpture certainly shows that large and grand is possible! It just takes the creativity to conceive the idea, and the wherewithal to construct it. Simple, huh?

And please note that this sculpture is 5-feet tall by 4-feet wide. That’s quite an impressive size. I am sure the people who commissioned this sculpture and arbor installation are in love with it.

So, for those of you that are bored with making smaller and simpler type hypertufa or concrete objects, perhaps a sculpture or other object even one third the size of the Little and Lewis 5-foot tall sculpture could be in the works for your next garden art project.

Let your imagination flow. Good luck!