How to Make a Nesting Hanger for Wild Birds

Winter is a hard time for our feathered friends. Their resources are depleted and come late Winter and early Spring, they have to use more energy to begin building their nests. This time of year, I like to ensure our feeders are full but I wanted to do more for them. One of my plans is to put out some additional birdhouses around the yard and I then got this idea to create a nesting hanger to help them with foraging for nesting material.

I have seen different variations of this online but this one could not be easier and was very inexpensive to make. I hope to attract more birds into the garden in the coming months by keeping them fed and with these nesting hangers! Keep reading to see how I did it!

How to Make a Nesting Hanger for Wild Birds

For my hangers, I used suet cages but I have seen all sorts of hangers made of different materials in every shape and size. I like the suet cages because they close easily and come with their own hanger chains for convenience. When it comes to materials to fill your nesting hanger you don’t have to spend anything. I was able to forage most of my materials from around my yard and an unexpected place around my house! The only thing I did buy was some coconut fiber from Amazon. Here are a few suggestions of natural fibers to use:

Human hair
Pet fur
Twigs – small pieces with a little bit of flex
Pine needles
Strips of bark
Dried grasses – cut into shorter pieces
Moss
Straw
Material scraps – cut thinly and not too long
Feathers
Alpaca wool
Sheeps wool
Coconut fibers

What you’ll need:

Suet cage
Various materials – I used dried grass, twigs, moss, my own hair, and this coconut fiber

All you need to do is stuff the suet cage with the various materials. There is no right way to do this but I do recommend making sure they can get at each type of material at some spot on the cage. Make sure your materials are in smaller pieces to make it easy to transport. I cut my grass into smaller pieces and made sure my twigs were in small pieces.

Once your cage is full to your liking, close the top to secure all the materials inside. Hang the nesting hangers near where you feed the birds to give them easy access.