Living with Birds Best Suet Blocks for Birds Tweetapedia

Suet blocks offer an easy way to feed wild birds beef suet and attract a variety of birds to your garden.

However, the cheapest suet blocks aren't always the best as they can be packed with penny-pinching filers like wheat flour - swapping out expensive beef fat with cheaper alternatives to cut costs. 

Here's our pick for the best suet blocks. 

To start, what makes a great suet block?

It all comes down to how accessible the calorie density is - how many calories per gram of suet cake. The more calories per gram, the better value the suet block is for the birds. They can get more calories with fewer pecks.

Here are the major ingredients that constitute a great suet block:

1.  Plenty of suet
They provide the best value of calories for wild birds. Generally speaking, the more suet a suet block has the more calories.

Beef suet has a calorie density of 8.5 calories per gram compared to a cheaper filler like wheat flour which has only 3.64 per gram. Beef fat has double the calories when compared to wheat flour!
  
2. A good amount of oils. 
These can be provided by oil-rich seeds such as sunflower hearts or peanuts. 

3. A modest amount of seeds
  These help hold the suet cake together, without them the suet cake would fall apart. However, watch out for cheaper seed ingredients like wheat or oats as these provide significantly less calories than premium alternatives like sunflower seeds. 

4. The occasional dried insect 
   Dried mealworms are an excellent source of protein for wild birds. They closely resemble the protein that birds will find in their natural diet (that of insects and their larve).

1. See the Difference Suet Cakes

These offer high suet content with premium ingredients and are great value for money. They have double the fat of 10 leading brands of suet cakes. The graph below shows the content of fat comparing See the Difference cakes with leading brands. 

Notice how much more fat is in the suet cake compared to leading brands. More fat means more calories.

Why are they great?

1. High-fat content (double the fat of 10 major brands)
2. Lots of sunflower seeds, peanut granules, and dried insects. These provide lots of accessible calories for birds. 
3. Available in multiple pack sizes (2, 4, 6, 12)

What's not so great?

• The high-fat content means that they are more susceptible to melting in direct summer sunlight. Place the bird feeder in the shade in hot weather. 

Where to buy? 

• Living with Birds
• Ark Wildlife
• Amazon
• Garden Bird Supplies

See the difference suet cakes compared to the 10 leading brands:

See the full results here.

2. Henry Bell Suet Cakes

These suet cakes contain a decent amount of fat. However, they are let down by the largest ingredient being wheat flour (as opposed to beef suet). Beef suet contains 9 calories per gram, whereas wheat flour contains only 4 calories per gram. 

What's great: 

• 32.7% fat content (updated 29/04/2024)
• Pack size: 10 pack

Where to buy? 

References: 
Beef suet calories
Wheat flour calories
Peanut calories
Sunflour hearts calories