Bird Feeders and Trapping Birds for Self Reliance Post SHTF
by Brian F
Resources for this article:
- Tomahawk Tomahawk Double Door Rigid Live Bird Trap
- Nature House ST1 Trio Sparrow Trap
Over the last couple of weeks due to the severe winter weather I felt badly for the wild birds. I did not have any store-bought feed for them so I scavenged the kitchen and came up with some treats for them.
My wife is terrified of birds, I think she was flogged by roosters as a young child so she avoids birds at any cost. When I told her what I was doing I got one of her spectacular expressions, followed by “Why?”
I explained that with all the snow and ice they were having a hard time of finding food. She watched while I rummage about, when I found the container of bacon grease I told her I would make a couple of suet cakes.
She always wants to help, so the suet cakes were made up with stale bread crust, flour from the night’s before home-made shake n fry batter, some old corn meal, and other bits and pieces. The grease was warmed in the micro wave and poured over the mixture in muffin tins. Once cooled I took one out to the birds.
Here’s the problem the cats decided that they liked the suet! So the birds did not get much. There a few metal post in the yard left by the former owners. I thought, Hmmm, post for feeders that I don’t have. But wait! I dug through my scrap material pieces, in my “treasures” I found two pieces of wood that looked as though they would be a good feeder platform.
In a few minutes in the shop I had the base made! While looking at the new feeder, I decided it needed a ledge, but the scrap wood pile is quite low. So the solution? I used an old tuna can! Screwed it to the wood base after drilling a hole in the block to slide down the post and viola! Bird feeder!
I put a couple of suet cakes in it, and in a little while I had probably 50 birds swooping in for bites. I spent hours the next few days watching birds come and go. But my mind was still working.
Backing up, I have heard and read of stories from Italy that after WW2 meat was scarce and expensive. The people would catch small birds for the meat in their marinara sauce. I am a firm believe in being self-reliant, in the past I trapped birds for the practice. The problem was unless a ready food source was available often I would not catch birds.
So I can put all the pieces together in my backyard, feeders that I make, food that would just be tossed into the compost bin, traps that I can build. All this equals an addition source of protein!
Examples of grease/ fat that is often throw out, chicken cooked in the crock pot, once it cools there is a layer of fat at the top of the broth, cooking sausage yields a nice bit of fat. Obviously bacon does also. Flour and meal from our shake n fry mixes, the tiny crumbs from chip packages, bits of bread and crust. Old out of date seeds. The list can go on for quite a while.
There are dozens of traps for birds illustrated on the net. I have tried almost all of them. But by far my favorite is the “Repeating Sparrow Trap” that I have seen. I have reversed engineered this trap from photos and videos, but it can be bought from the designer and patent owner for about 60 dollars US. I will not reproduce the drawings here, really if I did it would be theft.
But if you are inventive you can build your own, or just buy one and copy it. I love mine, I set it out and caught a bunch of birds over a months time. I caught a lot of Starlings also. Nuisance, pest, imported into the U.S.
I’m sure some folks would balk at eating birds but what do you think chickens are? With using those scraps and oils that is normally throw away you are encouraging the birds to come and once they are used to seeing box traps in the yard/ garden you can catch some and weed out the imported pests.
A benefit is when the garden is going the birds will catch insects from the yard and garden, just be sure then to leave pans of water out for them to reduce pecking at your veggies.
At this time harvesting birds may be frowned upon the powers that be, but in a situation you can supplement you food storage. Which is a desirable thing, a goal that I practice. It is not difficult and just think of the hours of entertainment you’ll have watching birds or in my case watching my house cat watch the birds.