Organic suet balls and real suet

Slåttergubben Loves Birds! That's why we only sell organic beef suet, not suet balls and fat cakes.

Suet balls are probably the simplest and most popular bird food. And it’s indeed cute to see the garden’s blue tits and great tits feast on them. They need the extra fat during the cold Swedish winter...

But the cuteness has a downside. Together, with all the small purchases of suet balls and fat cakes, we are driving the global market towards deforestation of rainforests in favor of palm oil and soybean farming in other parts of the world. The rhea in the picture is just one of many threatened birds affected by the expansion of soybean cultivation.

We therefore recommend skipping the ready-made suet balls and instead opting for real suet from organic cattle that have been allowed to graze in our Swedish natural pastures. This also benefits the myriad of insects, plants, and birds that thrive there, like the northern wheatear, wryneck, curlew, swallows, red-backed shrike, common whitethroat, and many more!

That’s what I call good bird feeding! Win-win!

How to Use Organic Suet?

Unprocessed suet is the most nutritious fat for our wild birds. It is their "raw food." Most birds eat raw insects and larvae; the difference with suet is not that great, except that suet is fattier and more energy-rich.

The simplest way to feed birds with the pieces of suet we sell is to place the relatively small suet pieces in a grill basket and hang it up.

You can also melt the suet. Chop it into smaller pieces or run it through a meat grinder, place it in a pot, and heat it up. It takes a few hours, but then it will look like the pieces are floating in their own oil. Let the fat solidify in desired molds, with or without the addition of seeds, etc. The small pieces that do not melt can also remain in the mixture when it solidifies.

Then you can hang out the suet with a clear conscience, as Swedish organic suet helps contribute to our natural grazing lands, which are so valuable for swallows, shrikes, curlews, wrynecks, honey buzzards, and many more species of plants, birds, and insects!

How to Make Your Own Suet Balls

We received this tip from one of our customers:

"I mix about 50 grams of butter with a generous handful of seeds/nuts in a bowl and then shape them into balls. Then I bind a simple 'net bag' using hemp twine, utilizing macrame technique. It's easy to hang up, and I reuse the net bag once the ball has been eaten."

Another customer suggests that it works well to cut suet from sheep, cattle, or pigs into small pieces, melt it in a saucepan, mix it with seeds, and then pour it into molds of the desired size!

Organic Bregott: A Good Alternative with Swedish Ingredients

Organic Bregott is actually cheaper than the cheapest suet balls! Calculated based on the price of the fat content. And it's very easy to just hang up a package directly for the birds!

Concerned that it is salted? 
No - the notion about salt is a myth, read more about that myth here. 

Suet balls and fat cakes usually contain a lot of seeds and flour to bulk them up and make them durable. This is reflected in the price per kilogram of the fat you buy. 

By purchasing Swedish butter/Bregott you contribute slightly to pastures, but not as much as by buying suet from cattle that have genuinely grazed outdoors. Since milk production is intensive and cows are often indoors consuming a lot of concentrated feed, it is better to reduce dairy product consumption and increase the share of organic beef - if you want to support the pastures!

How and where are fat balls and suet cakes for birds manufactured?

The production of fat balls, fat blocks, and suet cakes occurs in a few large factories. None of them are located in Sweden. No Swedish fats or seeds are present in these products. None of the ingredients are organically grown.

The primary fat used is tallow from cattle and/or inexpensive oils, mostly palm oil. The fat is typically processed chemically through hardening and interesterification to resemble stearin. This is to ensure that the fat balls have a long shelf life at room temperature, are odorless, and withstand pressure. This explains why the "fat balls" are sometimes rejected by the birds.

Our partner, Birdlife Sweden, has the imperial eagle as its patron species. This means that the organization bears a particular responsibility for the survival of the imperial eagle.

What do suet balls have to do with international bird conservation?

Well, for each ball that is purchased, a signal is sent to the market to produce more. To produce more, additional raw materials are needed.

The main raw material in suet balls and fat cakes is suet from primarily German and English conventional cattle. It is likely that these animals are more confined and consume more concentrated feed than our Swedish cattle. Confined animals do not contribute to any diversity of natural pastures. Instead of grazing on grass, they are fed indoors. Concentrated feed contains a lot of soybeans from Brazil. Increased demand for cheap soy for animal feed has caused massive land conversion in recent decades. Small-scale agricultural land, savannas, and rainforest land have been turned into enormous soy fields. One of the many animal species that have been disadvantaged by this is the Helmeted Woodpecker.

Palm oil is another raw material for some suet balls. The global demand for palm oil is perhaps the most severe threat to rainforests in Southeast Asia. They are simply converted into monoculture palm oil plantations. One of the species adversely affected by this is the critically threatened White-bellied Sea Eagle.

Are there cheap suet balls?

Suet balls and fat cakes usually contain a lot of seeds and flour to make them more substantial and durable. This is reflected in the price per kilogram of the fat you are buying.

Prices from April 2015 (Apologies if they are a bit old, but the differences should be similar now)

Vivaras/nature bookstore's energy block:                      100-150 SEK/kg fat

Coop's cheap suet balls (14% fat products):                     164 SEK/kg fat

Biltema 6 pack for 10 SEK (18% animal fat)                  100 SEK/kg fat

Expensive suet balls (35% animal fat) nordstar:       80-100 SEK/kg fat

Slåttergubbens untreated organic beef tallow (100% fat): 36-48 SEK/kg fat

Organic Bregott (rapeseed and Swedish butter)                 87 SEK/kg fat