Coconut Oil?

This probably seems a dumb question. I am about out of my homemade suet and need a fat for it. I am waiting for a friend to render her lard before I can get any. I need something to tide the birds over until then and wonder if the coconut oil I have on hand would be safe to use for my next batch. I tried searching, but the only thing I found was a no-no was "desiccated coconut" as it can swell in a bird's stomach.

Thanks for any help.

The obvious problem is that it is an oil, and wouldn't solidify at room temperature. So it wouldn't do a good job of gluing your suet together.

The coconut oil I have is solid, not liquid. I think everything would hold together, but I just could not find out if it was safe. It probably would melt in the warm months, but I do not usually have suet out then.

My husband went to town today, so I asked him to pick up some suet blocks. I do not want to risk harming the birds with trying something new.

Well, you could have had him pick up a tub of lard in the bakery isle or beef fat trimmings in the meat dept, too. Or the economy sized jar of peanut butter. I use the no- melt suet blocks from Walmart, but they do seem to contain a lot corn meal.

I am kind of picky even for the bird so ruled out the hydrogenated lard, but I had not thought of the fat trimmings. He went to Wal-Mart and picked up the No Melt variety. I noticed corn was the first ingredient, but I won't complain. He told me they had other blocks of suet with food coloring in them. What in the world???

Our feed store sells fancy expensive blocks. But they aren't pretty, they look like lumpy grease, and some of the lumps are bugs. I may treat the birds and me to one for the holidays. I guess the cornmeal and food-color in the cheap blocks are to make them look like something a person would like to eat. But I agree with you, I think most bird enthusiasts would read the ingredients and think "Yikes!" And drop them back on the store shelf.

PS- hydrogenated and saturated fats are basically the same thing. What a saturated fat is saturated with is hydrogen. And it thickens them and raises the melting point, they are usually solid at room temp. I don't mean to lecture but I was taught that in 9th grade 40 years ago, but I gather most folks weren't. My teacher must have been ahead of his time because this was way before the whole good fat bad fat news. And I gather a trans fat was originally an unsaturated fat that was hydrogenated into a saturated fat - with some molecules caught in between that are neither.

This message was edited Dec 11, 2014 6:55 PM

We recently got some "screenings" from the nearby organic farm, it's the leftover stuff from their mill. They feed it to their chickens. What we did with it is used a sifter to separate the fine stuff from the larger corn pieces. I put the corn on the ground for the birds and the finer stuff will get mixed in to my next batch of Zick Dough. Then I can save the actual whole wheat flour and corn meal for human use. :)

I don't mind the lecture. I do not remember many specifics of school. It's kind of strange, now with my interest in birds, I feel I am learning and retaining more than I ever did then. :)

I think you retain now because you really want to.

I got fat trimmings from the grocery store butcher once but the birds never touched them.

Okay, I buy my suet. But in theory, I think you are supposed to grind up your meat fat and mix it with nut/seed meats and dried fruit/raisins. I think Corvids are about the only ones that might like whole/chunky style fat. They like dog and cat food, too.

Thanks pollengarden. I just read an interesting piece about crows and scrub jays.

Personally- I swear by pure suet blocks. I'd need more time on my hands to mess with making 'suet'

The local Audubon group keeps the feeders at Saylorville filled in the winter and they place large chunks of fat in the woodpecker feeders and it gets eaten. I tried it here, but had no takers. The lazy birds do not want me being lazy. Sigh... :) I plan on making my suet today since I have the lard now.