It’s no secret that I love my backyard birds—I practically need a budget category just to support their appetites. I’ve covered the best wild bird food in the past, and now I want to let you in on a little secret of mine: my DIY homemade bark butter. The ones all my backyard birds go nuts over.
This homemade bird feed recipe is just a few ingredients, most of which you can find at your local grocery store. It’s based on Julie Zickfoose’s “Zick Dough,” with a tweak or two by yours truly. But before I go any further: I live in Wisconsin, and this homemade bird food recipe is best for locales that have at least some sort of winter—where the plants stop blooming and food for birds is harder to come by. It’s super-high in fat and protein, and in hot weather, it’ll melt. I’m writing this in January, so this DIY bird feed recipe is perfect for the next few months! (It’s also a fun homemade birdseed project for kids and, if you’re anything like me, adults.)
My homemade bark butter ingredients
Homemade bark butter ingredients
Here are the homemade bark butter ingredients you’ll need:
1 cup plain peanut butter 1 cup lard 2 cups unmedicated chick starter 2 cups quick oats 1 cup yellow cornmeal 1 cup flourA capsaicin-rich squirrel deterrent, like Cole’s Flaming Squirrel Sauce or Wild Birds Unlimited’s Hot Pepper Birdacious Bark Butter
The main ingredient you might not recognize is the unmedicated chick starter. It’s readily available on Amazon:
And then there’s the squirrel deterrent. Since Wild Birds Unlimited ships from local stores only, here’s that link. (Real talk: I think my bark butter is more popular with my birds than WBU’s. But I have more luck with adding their hot pepper bark butter than Cole’s sauce, which some of my squirrels seem to tolerate. And at $20 for 34 ounces, I’m making WBU’s bark butter go a loooong way—I couldn’t afford it at the rate birds eat it!)
If you’re not going the WBU route or don’t have one locally, go for something more readily available, like Cole’s Flaming Squirrel Sauce.
You could also add in a bunch of cayenne pepper, too, but I’ve found that my squirrels are pretty hard-up in winter and will tolerate that. Or, technically, you can skip this step altogether! But know that squirrels are as crazy about bark butter as birds are.
Lastly, if you don’t have lard on hand or want to go higher-end than what you can find at your nearest grocery store, here’s a good option:
In total, this DIY bird feed recipe makes around 6 cups of bark butter—make more or less, depending on your needs (I store mine in large yogurt containers). Once your birds discover it, trust me, it won’t last long. You can spread bark butter on trees with a fork, buy bark butter feeders, pretty much put it wherever your birds can get to it. Whenever I don’t have it out, it actually breaks my heart: My nuthatches prance around my bark-butter tree looking for it for hours!
My DIY homemade bark butter recipe
Time to spill my homemade bark butter secrets.
Step 1: Gather your ingredients. Be sure to also grab a container to store your bark butter in—like I said above, I use empty yogurt containers (can you spot mine behind the chick starter?). Even though all this is safe to eat, I actually keep a stash of my bark butter ingredients separate, in a cupboard in my mud room.
My homemade bark butter recipe’s first steps
Step 2: Combine your “wet” ingredients. In other words, melt 1 cup of peanut butter and 1 cup of lard in a microwave-safe bowl. This should take about 90 seconds. Stir until they’re fully incorporated together.
Homemade bark butter recipe coming together
Step 3: Add your dry ingredients. That’s 2 cups unmedicated chick starter, 2 cups quick oats, 1 cup yellow cornmeal, and 1 cup flour. Mix together until it becomes sort of like cookie dough, but a bit wetter.
Homemade bark butter recipe with squirrel deterrent
Step 4: Add your squirrel deterrent. If you have WBU’s hot pepper bark butter, add in 1 cup. If you have Cole’s Flaming Squirrel Sauce, about 1 tablespoon should do it. Mix until thoroughly incorporated.
Homemark bark butter recipe for the win!
Step 5: Place it in containers, let it cool off, and store in a cool, dry place. When it’s cooled, smear on a backyard tree or on a feeder. You’ll notice that it smells pretty delicious—and it is. Even my ground-feeding juncos love the stuff and will make awkward stops half-flying over the bark butter to reach it!
Last note: As noted before, only use this stuff in winter. It’s high-fat, high-protein, and birds should have a more varied diet come summer. (And it’ll melt if you live in a place with hot summers.) But where I live in Wisconsin, this stuff is good from basically October to April. It’s a great project for the kids, it’s great for budget bird seed and saving money, and it’s SO fun watching your backyard birds go ga-ga over the stuff.
Good luck!