Can you put Suet Pellets in a Peanut Feeder

Why invest in a specialist suet pellet feeder when you could in fact use your current peanut feeder to add pellets, although its easier said than done.

You can put suet pellets in a peanut feeder as the gaps can allow birds to take a bite or pull a whole pellet through. Compatibility issues can arise as pellets can be out of reach, whereas use of peanuts can see them spilling out of the sides. Peanut feeders are designed like suet pellet feeders so it can work.

Remember suet pellets are rendered beef fat thus your once clean peanut feeder can become far more mucky, as the suet creates a thin greasy film.

With that you'd need to reserve the peanut bird feeder as soon as you use it, or at least try it with your finest or cheapest suet pellets for wild birds; or else you'll get grease all over the peanuts which can deter birds.

What you can do for now is pop a few suet pellets into your peanut bird feeder and see how it goes. Likely outcome would be birds pecking at the pellets, while they will be unable to take a whole pellets away.

Peanut bird feeders are made with smaller gaps to stop nuts falling out, with pellets being much bigger the birds won't be able to take away a whole suet pellet.

Cheap options or only the best peanut feeders for birds are made with smaller gaps, as its what they are designed for.

With that in mind you can continue to use suet pellets in a peanut feeder, or make a few changes to make things fit.

Rather than using whole tubular shape suet pellets, you can instead chop them up into smaller, peanut bitesize pellets so birds can take them away.

Pellets can be put in Peanut feeder

What suet pellets are is a 5mm thick, one inch long tubular shape beef suet made for birds to pick up and take away, or to eat right there at the bird feeders.

Peanut bird feeders are a steel mesh bird feeder made with a crisscross wire where birds can poke their bills in to pick up one peanut at a time. Spacing between the wire holds all peanuts, while a peanut can be pulled through.

Can I say suet pellets are fully compatible with a feeder for what is a far different shape in a peanut, no I can't - although I can recommend you give it a go.

For the most part you can put suet pellets in a peanut feeder for sure, only the design or shape of the wire peanut feeder can make it easy for peanuts to be grabbed... or made harder if the suet pellets are too big.

Regardless, I believe many nut-eating, and therefore seed eating birds can perch or cling to the wire mesh to access some, if not all the suet pellets they want.

You can put suet pellets in a long rounded or wreath style peanut feeder, only you may see pellets go to waste as birds will give up if they can't access it.

Bites out of pellets will be seen yet if the pellets can't fully be accessed through those small wire gaps, birds will simply stop trying.

Good fit if pellets accessible

Go ahead and put suet pellets in to your wire mesh peanut feeder, and as a rule of thumb, if the pellets don't drop out its a good fit.

No way will these rather big suet pellets drop through the gaps of a wire peanut bird feeder, and if they do the bird feeder in question may be one made specifically for sunflower seeds, or perhaps it is made for use with pellets after all.

Don't continue to use any old peanut feeder to suspend suet pellets in if you don't see any use out of it.

Tell-tale sign is birds will appear to use a peanut feeder topped up with suet pellets, though none if it will be eaten.

What you must do then is forget about offering pellets in a peanut feeder because birds may not be able to access the pellets, even if they wanted it. Sure birds just may not want to eat the pellets - even though no common backyard birds can resist suet.

If you can't get birds to eat any kind of suet in your yard then absolutely will it be a compatibility issue.

When birds can bite into the pellets in-between the gaps of the wire then great, you got a winner - on the other hand if birds can pull a whole pellet through, then better still.

Suet pellet feeder similar to wire feeder

I believe there's two types of suet pellet bird feeders to know about, one is a clear plastic tube similar to a seed feeder - whereas a suet pellet wire feeder is designed like the peanut bird feeder option.

Difference between the styles is that the peanut bird feeder is designed with smaller gaps to keep the nuts trapped in the feeder.

Whereas a specialist suet pellet bird feeder uses wider gaps to allow birds to pull these large tubular suet pellets through the wire gaps to take away.

What I believe to be the best suet pellet bird feeder is actually the wire mesh kind.

Bird food trapped in an enclosed bird feeder can see it rapidly germinate due to sweaty, damp conditions forming inside. With a wire suet pellet bird feeder the suet is allowed to brief as its open to the cool outdoor conditions.

Suet pellet feeders are very similar to the peanut bird feeder kind, and where you can use pellets in most peanut bird feeders - to add peanuts to a wire mesh pellet feeder will see serious compatibility issues if reversing peanuts to pellet feeders.

Restrictions may apply

And herein lies the problem when using suet pellets with a peanut feeder, restrictions can apply of course because they are not meant to be.

When you replenish a wire peanut bird feeder the peanuts are seen to compact in, while the level slowly drops as birds take a whole peanut away.

Suet pellets piled into a peanut bird feeder may not be used in this way, which can see compatibility issues arise.

Rounded, one inch long tubular suet pellets won't compact in like peanuts, thus they are guaranteed to use less at a time.

With pellets the shape causes the pellets to fall in all angles, with many gaps and spacing seen to not taken advantage of. What this can lead to is birds unable to grab what they want, as they angle pellets sit at is too difficult to bite.

Restrictions do apply when using suet pellets in a peanut feeder, thus its best to use far less pellets in this kind of feeder in case you run a risk of waste.

Of the birds who eat suet pellets, few of them may not be able to tackle the complexity of a hanging bird feeder, let alone a wire bird feeder with no perch in place. Its always worth remembering to keep some pellets out of any type of bird feeder for these birds.

Suet pellets can go in others

Whilst a peanut bird feeder in a long mesh, a ball or wreath shape feeder may be used with suet pellets with great success, other birds feeders can be considered.

For one thing you can't really use a clear plastic tube seed mix feeder, as its designed to only suspend seed mixes made up of smaller bites. Whereas a clear tube suet pellet feeder removes any internal mechanism that is otherwise in the way.

I believe wire suet pellet bird feeders to be the best option because as mentioned previously, it allows bird food to breath.

Whereas the use of a hot inside plastic tube can see the beef fat suet pellets get a little greasy, as they overheat in such humid conditions.

What I would ask you to use if you want to splash the cash is to buy a specialty suet pellet bird feeder - made with wider metal mesh gaps to allow larger pellets to be pulled out.

With that in mind any wire mesh bird feeder designed with a wide wire gap gap can see pellets simply drop out, such as a peanut in shell bird feeder or a ball style nut feeder.

To sum it all up

You know what you can buy a specialist suet pellet wire style bird feeder similar to a peanut bird feeder, only the gaps in the suet pellet style are wider.

With that in mind I believe you can put suet pellets in a peanut feeder if only using caution along the way - as I don't want you to get your hopes up.

Suet pellets can go in this smaller wire mesh peanut feeder but that isn't to say you'd see much success with birds.

Birds can appear to be eating the suet pellets when in fact none of it is being eaten at all. Reason being is that the birds who want to eat the pellets, simply can't access it.

While peanuts topped up in its own wire bird feeder can be more compact, with peanuts seen to near spill out through the gaps - suet pellets don't compact in like nuts, as pellets have more of a loose fit.

Issue with that is the suet pellets can be out of reach if they're positioned more in the center of the peanut feeder, and here is where compatibility issues can arise.

Good fit peanut feeders for pellets will see birds bite with ease or pull the pellets through the gaps if they want to take it away.

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