Need replacement for nut butters in bird feeder craft

We faced this same challenge last year. BUT with much research we found out that we can use plain old Crisco shortening and Cheerios. It works great and the birds loved it. The kids had a blast making them and best of all, everyone was safe and could participate.

I was going to say Cheezewhiz but that can cost a pretty penny. I like Bewitched idea better & it also takes care of replacing the bird seed/seeds etc...Another high risk facter with such a project..

I had just decide not to ever do such a project for my son, but I really like this idea & they are items I have in the house So thats what we're doing today!

Thanks

This topic was discussed a couple of years ago. Here is the link. I hope it is helpful.

Edited to delete useless link. Back to Computer 101 for me!

Cindia

[This message has been edited by Cindia (edited February 11, 2005).]

Dd did hers with oats at my suggestion. Hopefully that is safe and okay for birds to eat! It was not planned ahead. I walked in and dd stepped up to the sensory table as a 40# bag of seeds was being dumped into the bin. [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/eek.gif[/img]

Short story is that dd was able to use oats and crisco. becca

How about suet? (My great aunt used to make birdfeeders from suet and birdseed. She'd call the butcher at the grocery store ahead of time, and he'd make up some packages of suet for her.)

Be careful. Most birdseed either contains peanuts or traces of it!

Right. The seed the teacher purchased for dd's class did not have peanuts or nuts in the mix, she thought she was being careful. However, I was leary, and asked for the bag and called. I was assured, in no uncertain terms, by that particular company, that it most likely *did* contain traces of peanuts. He said animal feed is not processed to the standards of human food and would not expect any cleaning procedures to be good enough either.

I forget which birdseed this was, as I am not interrested in finding a safe one anyway.

They had to get it out of the room, have any child who touched it wash up(this included dd) and watched dd closely that day. She was absolutely fine, which was reassuring.

It is another topic entirely, but I get so frustrated with these slip ups. This should be a no-brainer at a peanut/nut free school. I know the director is aware of this risk with this craft. We had discussed it in the past. But, as I said it is a separate topic from the safe birdfeeder project.

I was also wondering if corn, like poppping corn is okay for the birds? Anything safe for the birds to eat and crisco shoud do. I di think our teacher last year did suet.

Just found this link as I was curious as to exactly what suet is!

[url="http://www.birdfeeding.org/suet_faq2.html"]http://www.birdfeeding.org/suet_faq2.html[/url]

Eliminate the peanut butter they keep suggesting and there are alot of choices to use in the feeders. becca

OK, I finally remembered. Crisco and cornmeal. Mix it together, and it's very coarse and pasty. Then, you can roll it in (safe) birdseed or the Cheerios.

I like the Cheerios idea. We don't have any wheat allergic kids, so it should be safe for everyone.

Thank you for all the help!

Anne

My DS made these in preschool. They used Crisco shortening instead of the PB.

TRexFamily:

My name is Silvio and I have am a representative of J.S. Foods; distributors of the PB replacement Peabutter. I primarily monitor discussion boards and websites to gather information in an effort to improve our product and help families in their effort to make more allergy friendly products available to customers. We currently have a representative in the UK working hard to make our product available to you. We want to help your Scout Troop create excellent bird feeder crafts using Peabutter. Please feel free to provide me with some contact info via thia thread, our company web site [url="http://www.jsfoods.us"]www.jsfoods.us[/url] or by email [email]nando@jsfoods.us[/email] and we can work towards solving your problem.

Silvio S.
Customer Service

Peabutter is now available in UK & Europe, please contact me my email is [email]hpetrovini@yahoo.co.uk[/email] or tel +44(0)870 334 5282

Quote:Originally posted by TRexFamily:
[b]The Scouts are making the "roll the pine cone in peanut butter and then bird seed" bird feeders.

I know that there is a replacement for pb, nut butter, soy butter etc. It's cornmeal & something??? Does anyone know?

Sunbutter, peabutter, soybutter etc are not available here and are not options. Nutella has peanut oil and almond in it, so we can't use that. I need something else to completely replace the peanut butter.

Anne

[/b]