Bob, your blues should stay around in southern Missouri. Here is recipe for peanut butter suet – they love it but takes them a while to get used to it when switching from worms. Once they get the fact there are no more worms, they devour the suet.
Melt in microwave: 1 cup real lard (not shortening like Crisco) & 1 cup crunchy peanut butter & then stir in 1/3 cup sugar.
Add: 2 cups regular oatmeal
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour, (wheat is better)
Mix all together – let cool and then break up until crumbly – it will get more crumbs as it cools – want it about in pea sizes. You need to store it in refrigerator or part in freezer. It takes about one recipe to get hang of the consistency. I feed about 1/2 cup to a family of blues, 2 times a day. The lard (fat) helps them keep warm, peanut butter is good protein for them & the small amount of sugar gives them energy (so the books say). This is our administrator’s (Bluebird Nut Cher) recipe & I have used it going on 9 seasons. Of course, you could continue with the worms, just be sure they don’t stay long enough to freeze, but I really like to take a break from the expense of worms.
