First arrivals and feeding......

[flyin-lowe]

I had my first arrival a little over a week ago. The following day we were leaving town for spring break so I opened a few cavities added some nesting material and we headed out of town. The weather was pretty bad last week so I was hoping not to have many other returnees. We go back yesterday and there were 2 males and a female here. I grabbed some crickets this morning as it had not been warm enough for them to feed for a couple days and today is only in the 30's. I assume the early returnees might be the same ones I had to feed early last year because they went after the first cricket I flipped. I probably fed the 4 of them 40-50 crickets before they lost interest so I assume they are full now. I will probably flip some more tomorrow and then it is supposed to warm back up later in the week. Unless the forecast changes looks like the weather should be good for them after tomorrow.

This is only the third year I have ever had to feed them as typically by the time they get to my part of Indiana the weather is acceptable for them. However I had never had returnees before April 1st until 3 years ago and since then they have arrived earlier each consecutive year.

[sugarcreek]

I am doing likewise here in Ohio, Been bad since late Thursday afternoon....2 males and 1 female....Feeding 100 crickets a day, we have them now trained to come down to the feeding trays, as of Monday afternoon its still in the mid 20's so will continue to feed until Wed. the 30th when its supposed to go into the upper 60's. So far so good. Thankful not more are back yet. as its been miserable in the midwest

[deancamp]

Glad you both have been successful in getting your birds trained. Sure is paying off for you now.

[Kegger]

nice going guys!!

[flyin-lowe]

I feel for people who have tried and tried and never gotten them to eat flipped crickets. I only feed when they are going on several days without being able to feed. Once I get them through those bad days I don't feed again (unless the weather turns bad again). Hopefully the ones who can never get them to eat supplemental feed are trying before they are hungry enough to take the food and the martins are not as hungry as they think.

The first time I ever tried it, it took maybe ten flips before they took to it. The last two times they took to it right away.

[flyin-lowe]

I tried a little experiment today. Our cold snap is still in effect so I wanted to feed one more time. I didn't have time to run to the pet shop I usually get crickets from so I stopped in a bait shop down the road from me. I bought 100 crickets and also bought 50 bee larvae (bee moths). I did a search on the forum first and had not seen anyone mention them. They are actually cheaper than the crickets at the pet store, plus when I get crickets I throw them in the freezer until they stop moving around. The bee larvae were ready right out of the container, they were live but being a fridge they don't move much at all. Much like I expected the martins gobbled them up. I will probably get them from here on out due to the price and ease of not having to freeze them. I don't usually have to buy a bunch of crickets so no need for me to order thousands of them in bulk. The small container of bee larvae I bought was $3.00 for 50 (6 cents each). They had large packages that were cheaper per larvae so I next time I have to feed I will likely get them. For those of you who are not fisherman, the bee larvae look similar to a super worm. The other good thing is in my area almost every gas station and convenience store sells them as fishing bate.
Yesterday I only had 5 martins so I figured 150 insects would be enough for today. There was actually 10 here today so I doubles since yesterday.