house full of dead nestlings...what happened?

[Waydog]

My setup....3 poles 20' apart...2 poles with 4 gourds each..Bo11s with cooling caps and extended porches, one pole with sk 12 room converted to 6...all the nestlings in the house perished, with the exeption of one cavity, with pinkies that the parents are still active in...no apparent attack from hosp, no snake, racoon, owl, mites, parasites etc.. lookedfor damage peckmarks ....none evident...predator guards in place..temps are not above previous years...im only a 3rd year landlord with the previous being successful. Is there a disease that can strike? My initial guess would be heat, but questioning that this early in the season.temps only in high 80s to low 90s..with no apparent damage to them from predators...the gourds are all still fine....with many closing in on fledging dates in the gourds....thoughts???? I lost about 11 birds

[eyeamtheman]

Not sure what a "pinkie" is, but it could be a number of things unfortunately. Lack of food, which seems unlikely since your weather wouldn't be much different from mine. Don't know of any diseases that would have caused this. And if the parents are still there that makes it even more odd. I've seen, and had happen this year babies pushed out of the nest and die from apparent starvation and never understood why, when the remaining babies were fine. Sorry, not much help....

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Sorry to see that happen. In the cavities where the babies perished, have you seen the mothers? Or possibly have the mothers been caught by an owl or hawk, carried the mother away, and then the babies starved? Maybe an owl flushed out the mothers and caught them. If this happened to one, then the owl would come back to try the same thing on another? When something like this happens, the mother is missing, and the father will not feed the babies. Do you have a wire cage around the house?

[John Miller]

Evaluate whether the nests got wet. Couple of days of light rain, even with warm temps, can reduce feeding, and combined with wet nests babies 3 to 10 days can die of hypothermia. First time it happened to me was in some Coates housing in 2008, I think, in late June here in Missouri. Very young babies (pinkies) seem to survive better, as maybe the parents sit on them, and their nests may not get be flat from wear. If you suspect wet nests, do what you can to elevate. I overlay subfloors with cork, but even that isn't enough sometimes in some housing. As others have noted, this is just something to consider, not my firm conclusion of what happened.

[SMJohnson]

Any consideration been given to Buffalo Gnats?

[Waydog]

Emil...that is a possibility...maybe an owl caught one and honed in on easy pickings...its so odd that the house was the only affected..the parents are gone...no activity in the cavities affected..of course, I had to clean the nest and dead ones out. Gourd activity is still heavy...and the remaining cavity in house is still active with parents feeding. At this point, just don't know what happened...could've been gnats as stated by johnson,??? Dont think wet nest was it...but weve had alot of rain....so that could be a factor too...At any rate, this confirms my decision to go all gourds next year...bo11s like the 8 i have now..lots of room..I figured I'd do that anyway. Thanks folks for your replies!

[Craig Dyer]

Sorry Waydog.

I lost 5 of 6 nestlings (5-7 days old) in a Supergourd; what I believe to be hypothermia. They looked well fed, but the nest was soaking wet. We had endured several days of thunderstorms and cool temperatures. One lone nestling survived. Both parents continued to feed it, and it fledged within the last couple of days.