DIY Project

DIY Pine Cone Bird Feeder

Twenty minutes of work, one open cone, and a mix stiff enough to stay put in July. The only genuinely tricky part is the peanut butter argument, and that one has an answer.

A pine cone feeder is an open, dry pine cone packed with a stiff fat and seed mixture and hung where small clinging birds can work at it. It takes about 20 minutes to build, plus an hour in the refrigerator to firm up, and it costs almost nothing beyond the filling.

It is also the project most often done badly. Soft peanut butter straight from the jar slides off the cone in the first warm afternoon. A closed green cone holds nothing. And the string that most instructions tell you to tie in a long loop is the one genuine hazard in the whole build.

This page gives the materials list, the exact mix ratios, the hanging method, and a plain answer to the peanut butter myth that has followed this project around for forty years.

Materials and tools#

Nothing here is specialized. If you have a kitchen and a pair of scissors you are most of the way there.

Materials

• One open, dry pine cone, 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) long. Spruce and fir cones work; small hemlock cones are too tight.
• 3/4 cup (about 180 ml) plain peanut butter, unsalted, no added sugar, or the same volume of rendered beef suet or plain lard.
• 3/4 cup (about 180 ml) cornmeal or quick rolled oats.
• 1 cup (about 240 ml) black oil sunflower seed, sunflower hearts, or chopped unsalted peanuts.
• 12 inches (30 cm) of jute or cotton twine.

Tools

• A mixing bowl and a sturdy spoon or a butter knife.
• Scissors.
• A sheet of wax paper or foil to work on.
• A baking sheet, only if your cones need drying open.

The peanut butter question, settled#

The claim is that peanut butter sticks in a bird's throat and chokes it. It has been repeated in print and online since at least the 1970s, and there is no good evidence behind it. Birds have no soft palate for peanut butter to seal against, they swallow with the help of a muscular tongue and esophagus, and wild birds routinely eat sticky, gummy natural foods including tree sap, fruit pulp and insect larvae. Major feeding references and rehabilitation centers now list plain peanut butter as an acceptable food.

The real concerns are less dramatic and more useful:

• Rancidity. Peanut butter is mostly unsaturated fat. In sustained heat above roughly 80°F (27°C) it turns rancid within a few days, and rancid fat is genuinely bad food. This is why fat feeders are a cold-season project.
• Salt and additives. Birds have limited capacity to excrete excess sodium. Buy plain, unsalted peanut butter with no added sugar, and never use anything containing xylitol.
• Thick smears in freezing weather. A half-inch slab of stiff, cold peanut butter is awkward for a small bird to break up, and it can foul face feathers. Mixing it out with a dry grain solves this completely.

Filling mixes that work#

All three of these pack the same way. Choose by season and by what you have.

Raw beef fat from the butcher counter has to be rendered before use or it will go off. The melting, straining and setting method is covered in homemade suet recipes, which also covers why saturated fats hold up better outdoors than soft ones.

Skip anything on the what not to feed birds list. Bacon grease, salted nuts, bread, and sweetened cereals all show up in pine cone feeder recipes online and none of them belong there.

Step by step#

Total working time is about 20 minutes. Add 45 minutes if you need to dry cones open, and one hour of chilling before the cone goes outside.

1. Open and dry the cone (45 minutes, only if needed)#

If your cone is tight or damp, set it on foil and bake at 200°F (93°C) for about 45 minutes. The scales open as the resin dries. Let it cool fully before handling. A green cone straight off the tree will not hold filling.

2. Tie the twine first#

Wrap the twine around the stem end, between the top two rows of scales, and pull it tight into a double knot. Form a hanging loop no larger than 4 inches (10 cm) and trim the tails flush. Doing this before the cone is greasy saves a lot of frustration.

3. Mix the filling#

Combine the fat and the dry grain in a bowl and work them together with a spoon until the mixture is stiff and crumbly, closer to cookie dough than to frosting. If it still smears on the back of the spoon, add cornmeal a tablespoon at a time.

4. Pack the cone#

Hold the cone by the loop and press the mixture into the gaps between the scales with a butter knife or the back of the spoon. Work from the bottom up and push it in rather than smearing it on. Aim to fill the gaps flush with the scale tips, not to bury the cone in a fat ball.

5. Roll in seed#

Spread the sunflower or chopped peanuts on wax paper and roll the loaded cone, pressing gently so the seed embeds in the fat. Seed on the outside is what makes the cone visible and attractive to a passing bird.

6. Chill for an hour#

An hour in the refrigerator sets the fat so it will not slump on the walk outside. In freezing weather you can skip this. In warm weather, chill it and hang it in the morning.

Where to hang it and who shows up#

The best spot is 5 feet (1.5 m) up, on the shaded north or east side of a tree or, better, on a baffled pole 10 feet (3 m) from any branch a squirrel can jump from. Shade matters more than usual with a fat feeder because it slows spoiling.

Expect the same crowd that uses a suet feeder: black-capped chickadees taking a crumb and leaving, white-breasted nuthatches working the cone head-down, and downy woodpeckers settling in for a long visit. Titmice, wrens and occasionally a Carolina wren will use it too.

Give it a week or more before you judge the site. New feeders of any kind take a week or three to be found, and a fat feeder placed near existing cover gets discovered fastest. Siting details are in where to hang a bird feeder.

Squirrels, and being realistic about them#

A cone loaded with fat and sunflower is close to the most calorie-dense object in your yard. Squirrels find it, and a squirrel can carry the entire cone off in one trip because the twine loop gives them a handle.

If that matters to you, hang it from a smooth pole with a properly sized baffle rather than from a branch, using the geometry in how to stop squirrels. If you are building one cone with a child for a weekend, the cheaper answer is to make two and accept the loss of one.

Lifespan, cleaning, and when to stop#

This is a consumable. In cold weather with regular visitors, a well-packed cone lasts one to three weeks. In summer, expect two or three days before the fat starts to smell.

A cone can be reused two or three times: knock off the old residue, scrub it in hot soapy water, and let it dry completely for a day before repacking. After that the wood is saturated with old fat and the smart move is the compost pile. The general principles for keeping any feeding surface clean are in how to clean a bird feeder.

Take fat feeders down entirely during sustained hot spells. High-energy fat foods earn their keep in cold weather, as explained in best high-energy foods for cold weather, and they are mostly a liability in July.

Common mistakes to avoid#

• Using a closed cone. No gaps, no filling, no birds. Bake it open first.
• Using peanut butter straight from the jar. It slides off. Cut it 1:1 with cornmeal or oats.
• A long string loop. Keep it under 4 inches (10 cm) across and trim the tails.
• Salted peanut butter or bacon grease. Both are poor food and both are easy to avoid.
• Hanging it in full afternoon sun. Shade roughly doubles the useful life of the filling.
• Leaving the greasy remains up for months. Pull it when the seed is gone and the cone is bare.

If the project works and you want more of it, the same filling logic scales up to a seed wreath, and there is a broader set of simple builds in bird feeder projects for kids.