Bird seed cylinders can be a bit expensive to buy, especially when the birds discover the treats in your yard! Maybe you just like to make things yourself. This is a fairly easy way to make your own bird seed cylinders at very little cost. You just need a food processor, a kitchen scale (optional) a minimal number of ingredients, and empty plastic water bottles.
Tips to make bird seed cylinders easily
Have everything out, measured, and ready to grab. The mixture for the seed cylinders is hot and sets up fairly quickly, so the bottles need to be packed quickly.
Cut the tops off the bottles at the point where it starts to narrow.
You can use birdseed without shells. You can substitute other ingredients for the birdseed. Try nuts, seeds, and dried fruits. I will only use nuts or trail mix that has no salt, spices or seasoning, and have not been roasted in oil. Nuts roasted in oil can become rancid, and the birds won’t like them. You can use nuts that are raw or have been dry roasted.
Wear latex or rubber gloves.The easiest way to pack the mixture into the bottles is with your hands, and the sugar syrup is hot and can burn.
Once packed into the bottles, the mixture can take a while to set up. You can put them into the refrigerator to speed up the time for them to harden.
You can store the packed cylinders in the freezer if you don’t go through them quickly.
When the bird seed cylinders have hardened, just cut them open with scissors and dispose of the bottles.
Tools you’ll need to make bird seed cylinders
kitchen scale (you can use measuring cups, but a scale is much easier)
food processor
heavy saucepan
latex or other disposable gloves
empty plastic water bottles with the tops cut off
easiest way to hang seed cylinders
I use a small lantern-style cage cylinder feeder from Wild Birds Unlimited. Just pop the top off and drop the seed cylinder in. The other cylinder feeders are made for the commercially made hard seed cylinders with a center hole. I tried those but found that the larger birds would manage to break off large chunks of the seed cylinder. After that, I was mostly feeding pigeons.
bird-watching in Albuquerque
Bird watchers love to feed the birds in their yards at home. They also like to look for the local birds when they travel. There are plenty of places for bird-watching in and around Albuquerque. If you like, you can even arrange a personalized bird-watching tour.
bird-watching at the Bottger Mansion of Old Town
Our yard has become a haven for local birds. Finches and goldfinches are here year-round. Hummingbirds spend the summer with us from mid-April to mid-September. Robins arrive in the spring, and Northern Flickers stay for a couple of weeks in the fall to eat the berries on the Chinese pistache tree. Pigeons are always around in cities, but they disappear when Socks and Graycat patrol the yard. We’ve had a pair of nuthatches all year–I hear their calls high up in the trees but haven’t seen them yet. The yard can become suddenly still and quiet when a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk or a falcon arrives.
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 5 minutes |
| Passive Time | 6 hours |
| Servings |
cylinders
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- 110 grams sugar (1/2 cup)
- 160 grams white corn syrup (1/2 cup)
- 110 grams lard (4 oz.)
- 275 grams peanut butter (1 cup)
- 340 grams cornmeal (2 cups)
- 95 grams rolled oats (1 cup)
- 300 grams bird seed (1 cup)
Ingredients
sugar syrup
seed mix
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- Set a heavy saucepan on a kitchen scale and set to zero grams. Add the sugar to the pan; re-set to zero. Add the corn syrup. Stir well; Over medium-low heat, cook the sugar mixture and stir often until bubbling and thickened.
- Set the bowl of the food processor on a kitchen scale; set weight to zero. Add the lard; re-set the scale to zero. Add the peanut butter; re-set the scale to zero. Add the cornmeal. Process in the food processor until the mixture is smooth and well-blended.
- Set the bowl of the food processor on the kitchen scale. Add the rolled oats. Process until the mixture is well-mixed.
- Set the bowl of the food processor on the kitchen scale. Add the birdseed or other nuts. Process until the mixture is fairly smooth and the nuts are ground relatively smooth.
- When the sugar syrup is hot and bubbling, add it quickly to the mixture in the food processor and blend until well-mixed. You may have to scrape and push it around several times.
- Wearing latex gloves, push handfuls of the seed mixture into the water bottles. Keep filling and pushing it down to fill all the gaps.
