New house need advice

[msaltzman]

Ordering a trendsetter 12 tomorrow can't decide round or crescent entrances have a s and k with crescents had a lot of visitors but none would go in the house but did go in the gourds with round holes never stayed but now that I'm gonna get a nicer house am having a hard time deciding which to go with any advice would be greatly appreciated

[DebA]

I love my Trendsetter 12! With crescents! I had S&k crescents prior too for four years. I watched some struggles initially. Occasionally a new bird takes a few tries. I'm not sure if because my birds had worked out their kinks but when they arrived to the new house they just glided right in.

If you have starlings in your area I'd recommend crescents. I'd sure hate for you to spend that much to later regret the opening. They will figure out crescent even if it takes a few days.

Enjoy your new martin house! You will marvel at its construction.

Deb

[CraigMo.]

Crescents for safety

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Go with the crescents now, the round is a temporary easy way out. If you go with the round, you most likely will be forced to go with crescents in the near future. That is added expense and added trouble. I definitely would go the safe route initially

[chickadee]

crescents! I spent years afraid to switch from round to crescent. and when I did I would run out and switch some thinking they could not get in. I decided not to watch on some days. and thanks for advise on the forum I stayed strong and everyone was right they could get in. they are just very cautious. But go when ready. its the best switch I ever made. if not they will leave or die from starling attacks. unless you can watch and shoot them around the clock.

[4th Gen Martin Fan]

Easy advise for me to give. Crescents!
Round holes will decrease your landlord anxiety that they cannot get into or are not interested in a house with SREHs.
If you do get martins, then your anxiety about a possible starling attack through the round holes will be much worse.
I think that the crescents are a good compromise between round holes and some of the more restrictive SREHs.

The Trendsetter with crescents is an outstanding choice.

Boldly go where many have gone before.
Mark.

[klcretired]

Use crescents unless you are there all day to monitor your colony, only use round hole entrances if you are S & S Free

[MamaBruff]

Easy advise for me to give. Crescents!
The Trendsetter with crescents is an outstanding choice....Boldly go where many have gone before. Mark.

Make it so, number one! In charting a path to success, try to eliminate hazards.

We have enough to fret over. I love my Trendsetter 12. Half of my problem birds are excluded this way.

[bluetick]

I have one with round holes that I would like to change but I would like to know how to do it right. I am afraid if I cut the holes out and just use plates to change it to Conley II entrances I may have a wing entrapment problem. Can anyone tell me if you can change it with out having a problem? I wish I would have just went all gourds. I love my gourds and my birds do too. The trendsetter is sure a nice house but when I bought it I was not aware of the SREH entrances. Thanks. Dave.

[Jose Rodriguez]

Crescents have my vote!

[Bill Hyde]

Your location near the Illinois River is a great location for starting a Purple Martin colony! Because of nest site competition among martins, sparrows, starlings, etc. I recommend sreh entrances on every martin house or gourd. Have you tried Clinger entrances on your s&k gourds? These entrances are 99.99% starling proof and the martins usually figure them out quicker than on a crescent entrance. You still have time to get your Trendsetter up and open before the PM migration pace hits is peak. Only a few scouts have been reported to date among the Illinois counties north of you, so you should have good luck getting visitors and/or nesting pairs this year. Good luck!

[Jose Rodriguez]

My S&K Gourds are of the clinger type opening and my natural looking plastic gourds I had to modify to the crescent type. The pair of Martins that we have love the gourds with the clinger opening and the cling plates. I wish everyone a good season. God knows I've been wanting this for a long time! Four years to be exact. It took us 6 years to finally get bats in our bat house!

[msaltzman]

Thank you all for the advice just got done ordering my house and gourds from pmca crescent entrances I really hope they will take to it so again thank you all

[jr 2]

how does the cling plate help the martins??don't look like they could cling too it very good;;;would not porches be better??just wondering;;jr2

[chickadee]

porches are better. but the cling plate give them a prop for their body. and just without porches some have said they have less sparrows. myself I have all porches so I have not tried a cling plate.

[Madame WingNut]

I have installed and monitored a number of rigs here in Ohio and experimented with different entrances, housing/gourd styles, etc. If you have Starlings in your area, definitely install Starling resistant entrance. Interesting experiment we did with 24-gourd rig was to install Conley II entrances on only 6 and the rest were round holes. What happened was the dominant Purple Martins in the colony gravitated toward those Conley II's, were able to nest earlier, and had larger clutches than most of the other compartments. They knew they were safer there as the dang Starlings kept trying in the round holed gourds. I ran myself ragged trapping Starlings. I have converted them all to Conley II's now and every gourd fledged young last season in that rig + hardly any trapping needed (only for House Sparrows which are not nearly as abundant here as the Starlings).

Crescents are pretty good too. I have seen some smaller Starlings breach these entrances, but not often.