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Pond digger

 

Wot sort of quantites of either suet or dripping would u need? I;d imagine a plant pot could be about 1/2lb? how much liquid/mlted fat would it need.

 

Meant to add/ask Heston, how do the farmers make the blocks just adding water to the lime and add that to their mineral mix?

 

 

Just had a bit of a google there, according to some random stuff i found roughly 2 parts dry mix to 1 part fat

 

Also found load of different suet mixes just for birds all different flavours etc, do u think i could melt those down and bulk them out with my wild bird seed mix?

Edited by scotslad
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Pond digger

 

Wot sort of quantites of either suet or dripping would u need? I;d imagine a plant pot could be about 1/2lb? how much liquid/mlted fat would it need.

 

Meant to add/ask Heston, how do the farmers make the blocks just adding water to the lime and add that to their mineral mix?

 

 

Just had a bit of a google there, according to some random stuff i found roughly 2 parts dry mix to 1 part fat

 

Also found load of different suet mixes just for birds all different flavours etc, do u think i could melt those down and bulk them out with my wild bird seed mix?

There are a lot of variables here, but to give you a rough idea, I use 500g of dripping and 500g of lard, to 1170g of ground peanuts and an equal volume ( don't have any to weigh at moment) of mixed bird seed. You need to experiment a bit though: so long as the mix is all coated with fat, it should stick together. I suspect that if you skimp on fat though, the blocks could be to crumbly, and pheasants might just knock them to bits. You can't really overdo the fat content, so don't worry about that.

 

Although mine are not intended for Pheasants, they do love them: I hang them in an apple tree, and have to choose the branch carefully, in order that they're out of reach.

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Ceers pond digger and Heston.

 

Meant to look into getting some builders lime, atleast it is more natural than cement. Is field/farmers lime u spread in the spring the same stuff?

 

Where would u get large quanties of either dripping or suet?

 

Going to have a google and try to find out.

 

Cheers for everyone for all the advice/ideas

Farmers lime, is just ground limestone as a rule; it won't set like builders lime. I'd be a little concerned that builders lime could be a bit harsh ( it does burn your skin a bit, as does cement ). Also, Lime won't set as hard as cement, so I suspect you'd need to use more.

 

I'd be interested to hear how you get on.

Edited by pond digger 007
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  • 1 month later...

Palm Oil or refined coconut oil I think would be the best stuff to use. I remember buying a litre of refined coconut oil once and was bemused when it turned up in a 1 litre bottle and set hard.......Run it under a warm tap and it turns back to liquid.

 

I did a little digging and found that palm oil has the same kind of properties.

 

You can buy 1kg of refined coconut oil on Amazon for about £10.50 delivered. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Refined-Coconut-Solid-Oil/dp/B007QRIX5E I

 

'm not sure how much you would need to mix in to make up a decent batch for game blocks but suppose it would take a little bit of trial and error.

 

If anyone gives it a go please report back as would be keen to see how you got on.

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