Comparison

Suet Cake vs Suet Plug

The choice is really between a wire cage and a drilled log, because the suet is nearly the same product in two shapes. What differs is who can reach it and how fast it disappears.

Suet is rendered animal fat, usually mixed with seed, cracked corn, peanuts or fruit, and it is the highest-energy food you can hand a woodpecker. It is sold in two shapes, and the shapes are not really competing on quality. They are competing on which feeder you hang.

A cake is a molded square, near-universally sized to fit a wire cage about 5 inches (13 cm) square. A plug is a cylinder sized to drop into a drilled hole in a log feeder, most often around 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter and 4 to 5 inches (10 to 13 cm) long.

Everything that follows from that comes down to access: a cage presents a large flat surface that any clinging bird can work at speed, while a log presents a small circle at the bottom of a hole that rewards a long bill and a stiff tail. This page covers the head-to-head, the starling question, cost, and the mistakes each format invites. The background is in the suet guide and suet feeders.

What the real difference is#

It is the feeder, not the fat. Buy a cake and a plug from the same maker and the ingredient lists will often be nearly identical: rendered beef fat, cracked corn, and some combination of seed, peanuts or dried fruit. Nobody should choose between them on nutrition.

What differs is the rate at which the food can be removed. A cake in a standard cage is exposed on both large faces, and a starling or a flock of them can strip one in a day. A plug sunk in a log presents perhaps two square inches of surface at the mouth of a hole, and the bird has to reach in. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and creepers do that easily. Larger, less agile birds find it awkward.

The second difference is what the feeder itself costs and how long it lasts. A wire suet cage is $6 to $20 and lasts for years, and a squirrel can chew a plastic-coated one open. A log feeder is $12 to $30, looks better on a tree, and is much harder to clean, because rancid fat works into the drilled holes and into the wood grain where no brush reaches. You can also make one, which is what the DIY suet log feeder covers.

Head to head#

The starling problem, which decides this for many people#

In a lot of yards the suet question is not cake or plug, it is how to keep European Starlings from taking the entire cake before a woodpecker arrives. Starlings are not agile clingers in the way woodpeckers are, but a standard wire cage lets them perch on the rim and feed straight ahead, which they do in groups.

The reliable fix is an upside-down suet feeder, where the cake sits horizontally and the only access is from underneath. Downy, Hairy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, along with nuthatches and chickadees, hang beneath a feeder without hesitation. Starlings mostly will not, and where they persist they feed far less efficiently. This is one of the cleanest single-purchase solutions in bird feeding, and it is discussed further in starlings at the feeder.

Suet plugs help with starlings, but less than people expect. The log slows them down rather than excluding them, and a hanging log with no perch below is better than a log mounted flat against a trunk. If starlings are the reason you are considering plugs, buy the upside-down cage instead and stay on cakes.

Who each one is right for#

Cakes suit you if

• You want the cheapest fat per pound and the widest choice of formulations, including no-melt and hot pepper versions.
• You want a feeder you can actually clean, since a wire cage can be scrubbed, soaked and dried properly.
• You need an upside-down or tail-prop design for starlings or for larger woodpeckers, both of which take cakes.
• You feed in winter and want a lot of available energy in one place, which is the case made in winter high-energy foods.
• You make your own, which is far easier in cake form. See homemade suet recipes.

Plugs suit you if

• You want a feeder that looks like part of the tree, which a log genuinely does.
• You are feeding a small number of clinging birds and want the suet to last, rather than disappearing in a day.
• You want to attract Brown Creepers, nuthatches and small woodpeckers specifically, all of which work a vertical log naturally.
• You have squirrel pressure at a hanging cage and a trunk-mounted log with a baffle above it is easier to protect.
• You want a project. A drilled length of hardwood with an eye screw is a twenty-minute build.

The cases where the answer flips#

• Starlings arrive. Switch to an upside-down cage with standard cakes rather than to plugs.
• Summer heat sets in. Above about 80 to 90°F (27 to 32°C) ordinary rendered suet softens and drips. Switch to a no-melt formulation in either format, and prefer cakes because you can see whether they are melting. Melting suet inside a log hole is invisible until it smells.
• You want Pileated Woodpeckers. They need something to brace a tail against, so a tail-prop cage or a substantial log both work and a small hanging cage does not.
• Bears are active in your area. Suet in any form is one of the strongest bear attractants at a feeding station. Take it down entirely between spring and fall in bear country, as covered in bears and feeders.
• You are trying to control cost. Plugs are two to three times the price per pound of fat, so a busy yard on plugs will spend noticeably more.

What each one costs#

The honest comparison is per pound of fat, not per unit. A 12 oz cake at $1.60 is about $2.13 per pound. Three plugs totaling 12 oz at $5.00 is about $6.67 per pound, roughly three times as much for the same food in a different shape. In a yard where woodpeckers work a feeder daily through winter, that difference is real money over a season. Choosing a suet feeder covers the hardware side of the same budget.

The verdict#

Buy cakes and a wire cage. They cost less per pound of fat, come in far more formulations including no-melt, fit the upside-down feeders that solve the starling problem, and go in a feeder you can genuinely clean. For a first suet feeder this is the right purchase in almost every yard.

Buy plugs and a log when you want a slower, quieter feeder on a tree trunk for clinging birds, and you are willing to pay a premium for the format and to accept a feeder that is hard to clean. There is nothing wrong with that choice, and it is a pleasant thing to watch. Just do not buy it expecting to solve starlings, because it will not.

The strongest setup in most yards is both: an upside-down cake cage on a baffled pole for the woodpeckers you want to see, and a log on a nearby trunk for creepers and nuthatches. Building a feeding station covers arranging them.

Mistakes people make with each one#

With suet cakes

• Running plain rendered suet through a hot summer instead of switching to a no-melt cake.
• Using a bare wire cage against a window or wall, where a startled woodpecker has no escape route. Read distance from windows.
• Hanging the cage in the open and losing every cake to squirrels. Suet needs the same pole and baffle treatment as seed.
• Never washing the cage. Rancid fat coats the wire and turns birds off. Scrub it on the same rota as everything else, in the cleaning schedule.
• Buying flavored cakes for the flavor. Birds respond to fat and to the seed or insect content, not to the marketing on the wrapper.

With suet plugs

• Leaving old fat in the holes. Suet works into the wood, goes rancid, and the log smells before it looks wrong. Scrape the holes out at every refill.
• Mounting the log flat against a trunk with a ledge below it, which gives starlings and squirrels a perch.
• Using softwood, which absorbs fat deeply and rots.
• Expecting plugs to exclude starlings on their own.
• Paying plug prices for a busy yard. If your feeder needs refilling twice a week, cakes will cost you a third as much for the same food.