Our simple wildlife and bird friendly reindeer food recipe with free printable labels and cute reindeer bag design. Kids will love making food for Santa's reindeer!
After reading warnings from the RSPB about the dangers of adding glitter to 'reindeer food', I decided to make our own bird-friendly reindeer food with my kids this year.
Instead of glitter or sprinkles, we used dried fruit and some bird-seed, and I have to say, bagged up in fun reindeer themed packaging (inspired by our reindeer treat bags, which have been very popular here on the blog this year!), we think it looks every bit as fun as the standard glittery kind.
Best of all, we can scatter it guilt free, knowing that the birds will enjoy any bits that are leftover by Santa's reindeer without any harm coming to them!
If you have any trouble loading the tutorial video, click here to watch it on YouTube, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Eats Amazing YouTube channel while you are there for lots more easy recipes, tutorials and fun food ideas!
You’ll also find the full instructions, free printable labels and a printable recipe card for the reindeer food below.
Making reindeer food is a really fun activity to do with the kids in the run-up to Christmas - as well as making some to scatter on your own lawn, it makes a fun gift for kids to give to their friends too.
If you don't want to make as many bags as we did, just reduce the recipe quantities for your own requirements.
Wildlife Friendly Reindeer Food
Ingredients (makes 6-8 reindeer bags):
- 2 cups oats
- 1 cup mixed seeds or wild birdseed
- ⅔ cup dried cranberries
- ⅓ cup chopped dried apricots
- pinch of magic!
Equipment:
- 6-8 clear disposable piping bags or cone shaped cellophane bags
- 6-8 long brown pipe cleaners
- 12-16 googly eyes
- glue stick
- single hole punch.
- String
- Labels (see free printable below)
Method:
Pour the oats, seeds, ½ of the cranberries and all of the apricots into a large bowl. Get the kids to add a pinch of magic from a bowl or the air for extra fun!
Give everything a good stir until it is completely combined.
Divide the remaining cranberries between the bags.
Spoon the reindeer food mixture into the bags on top of the cranberries.
Wrap a pipe cleaner around each bag to tie it closed, then wrap the two loose ends around your finger to curl into antlers.
Glue two googly eyes onto each bag.
Print off as many labels as you need, then cut each label down to size and punch a hole in each one.
Tie a label onto each reindeer with string.
Store in a cool dry place until Christmas Eve, when you can sprinkle the reindeer food outside your house to attract Santa's reindeer!
As mentioned above, I've created some free printable labels to go with this fun reindeer food recipe. If you would like to print them off, click here to download a sheet of 8 labels or click here to download a sheet with a single label.
If you enjoyed this festive idea you might also like these fun Christmas craft and activity ideas for the kids too:
Christmas Bauble Snack Treasure Hunt
For more fun ideas for the festive season, check out the Christmas Crafts & Activities and Fun Christmas Food sections here on the Eats Amazing blog or pop over and follow my Christmas Pinterest boards for lots more fun ideas from around the web; Christmas, Cute Christmas Food Ideas and Healthy Christmas Food.
Grace
Wildlife Friendly Reindeer Food
Equipment
- clear disposable piping bags or cone shaped cellophane bags
- long brown pipe cleaners
- googly eyes
- glue stick
- single hole punch
- String
- Labels (find free printable labels at www.eatsamazing.co.uk)
Ingredients
- 2 cups oats
- 1 cup mixed seeds or wild birdseed
- ⅔ cup dried cranberries
- ⅓ cup chopped dried apricots
- 1 pinch of magic!
Instructions
- Pour the oats, seeds, ½ of the cranberries and all of the apricots into a large bowl. Get the kids to add a pinch of magic from a bowl or the air for extra fun!
- Give everything a good stir until it is completely combined.
- Divide the remaining cranberries between the bags.
- Spoon the reindeer food mixture into the bags on top of the cranberries.
- Wrap a pipe cleaner around each bag to tie it closed, then wrap the two loose ends around your finger to curl into antlers.
- Glue two googly eyes to each bag.
- Print off as many labels as you need, then cut down to size and punch a hole in each one.
- Tie a label onto each reindeer with string.
- Store in a cool dry place until Christmas Eve, when you can sprinkle the reindeer food outside your house to attract Santa's reindeer!
Video
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Pauline Gordon says
Thank you so much for this resource. It is so kind of you to share it for free.