Cleaning houses and gourds

Emil Pampell-Tx · Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:49 am

I didn't clean my gourds very well before the just finished season. I dumped out some of the packed and stinky ones, but left a whole lot of the sticks and sort of left them dirty. I left all the material that was stuffed under the entrance so they could enter and exit easily.

The above didn't seem to bother the martins at all, we had the best ever season here, the weather was sort of ideal. We got a lot of rain (18in in July), and we had excellent success with the fledging.

Now that brings up a point, is it necessary and important to clean out the gourds and housing with bleach or other strong chemicals?

Or is it better to leave them somewhat dirty? Are there any "good" bugs in the old nests that help keep the martins healthy? I garden organically, and I think that maybe we should start to consider to not use stuff like bleach to sterilize the housing.

A third factor is that I do use sevin, but even with the dirty gourds, and with all the July rains, only one application of sevin was used at the beginning of the season, and I never saw a single mite.

I really don't know which methods are best, but its a whole lot easier to not clean them real well, and the martins seem to like that, and it sure doesn't seem to hurt them at all....just some thoughts

terrapincove · Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:23 am

Anything that can be done to reduce the effort required to host martins will increase the number of people willing to become landlords.

tonyg · Fri Sep 03, 2010 1:12 pm

Emil I just remove the old nest and do a little rinsing with water in my gourds and just remove the nest in my trio's and T-14..I think they like that "lived in" look when they return in the spring.

~Ray~Gingerich · Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:47 pm

I wonder if it would work to place a gourd with nest and all in an old microwave to kill all any bacteria, mites or eggs in the nesting material. That might be good in the spring for that lived in before look.

april57 · Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:57 pm

Its good I think to have new nests. Like moving into a new condo. I just take the old nests out and wipe out with a light bleach solution. Ready to go for the new year. We have a huge problem North with blowflies so you want all material gone and nothing hybernating over the winter.
As flies do that...
April

fzelch · Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:36 am

I use bleach and water to clean my house and gourds only to make sure I have no parasites left in them. This being my first year here in KY and lucky to have already had two breeding pairs I'll have to wait and see what next season brings.
Frank

LarryMelcher/KY · Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:23 am

Emil,
Just to clarify for readers, are you still using a lot of Natural gourds? Plastics and alluminum housing I would think it does not matter, but the "rotting factor" of the bottom of a nice natural is one reason I would definitely clean out gourds at the end of the season.

I, like you, don't like the end of season clean-up at all. Last year, I waited too late, and my hands nearly froze while cleaning gourds out with the garden hose sometime late in November. This year, I plan to get my 168 nests cleaned up much sooner. (still not done) I only have 58 of those at home, and hope to someday meet some martin nuts like me that will help me at the public colony sites to do the rest.

Robbo · Sat Oct 23, 2010 1:19 pm

I also use bleach and water. I agree with April ( Hi April), Although I am speaking of wooden houses and yes Blowflies and Mites can be a big problem here. Next season will be my first with Gourds( BO-11's) and I will clean them also after the season if they attract any Martin's.
Rob.