Does anyone remember the brand name of a gourd that had a "pop-off" front? As I remember, we had a choice of a round hole or an oblong hole. A picture is attached. I'm guessing this brand is out-of-business, but I want to make sure. We're having a big starling problem this year, and they seem to be able to get into the oblong holes, but not the crescent holes as are on our other gourds.
Thanks!
Looking for brand name of gourd.
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Ginny Pres
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- Gourd with oblong hole 1.jpg (64.46 KiB) Viewed 1633 times
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Martintown33
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- Martin Colony History: Colony started in 1998. 2 s&k modified houses and gourd rack
Interesting. I’ve never seen that type of gourd before . Hope you can get some replies ..
Rob
Rob
PMCA member
Laplace, La
Laplace, La
Hello
Am I getting warm
Later Unk
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Bo Gourd Modifications
Purple Martin Forum
https://purplemartinforum.org › viewtopic
Aug 11, 2024 — Now to the front entrance, the Bo Gourd does not come with a access port. There access port is the whole front of the gourd with the entrance that pops off.
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May 5, 2025
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Jan 6, 2025
More results from purplemartinforum.org
Am I getting warm
Later Unk
=====================
Bo Gourd Modifications
Purple Martin Forum
https://purplemartinforum.org › viewtopic
Aug 11, 2024 — Now to the front entrance, the Bo Gourd does not come with a access port. There access port is the whole front of the gourd with the entrance that pops off.
New Troyer Gourd Access Cap - Purple Martin Forum
May 5, 2025
Replaced All My Old Gourd Access Caps With Heavy-Duty Caps
Jan 6, 2025
More results from purplemartinforum.org
That is a Natureline gourd.
They were made by a company called Plasticraft.
The are unfortunately no longer produced, so finding replacement entrances for them may be tricky.
Based on the size of the openings on the Naturelines once you pop the entrances out, I've wondered if these would work on them (they may not fit at all):
https://www.purplemartin.org/shop/produ ... er-tunnel/
They were made by a company called Plasticraft.
The are unfortunately no longer produced, so finding replacement entrances for them may be tricky.
Based on the size of the openings on the Naturelines once you pop the entrances out, I've wondered if these would work on them (they may not fit at all):
https://www.purplemartin.org/shop/produ ... er-tunnel/
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Martintown33
- Posts: 1366
- Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:21 pm
- Location: Laplace,La
- Martin Colony History: Colony started in 1998. 2 s&k modified houses and gourd rack
P.S. looking at your picture again, the starling may have breached because the floor of the porch looks fairly low (1/2 to 1 inch) beneath the bottom of the entrance hole?..
to help keep starlings out, the porch floor should be no more than 1/8 of an inch below the bottom of the entrance hole. This makes it difficult for the starling to squeeze her larger body and relatively long legs through the hole, simultaneously ..
Good luck
Rob
to help keep starlings out, the porch floor should be no more than 1/8 of an inch below the bottom of the entrance hole. This makes it difficult for the starling to squeeze her larger body and relatively long legs through the hole, simultaneously ..
Good luck
Rob
PMCA member
Laplace, La
Laplace, La
-
Ginny Pres
- Posts: 31
- Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 10:26 am
- Location: Missouri, Raymore (south of KC)
Thanks all for the comments and suggestions.
Matt F., Natureline sounds familiar. Through the searches I’ve already done, I was pretty sure they were no longer available. When we bought them, we had already put starling excluder entrances on our house, but all that was offered on these gourds (other than round) was the oblong. We thought the pop-off entrance might be better for cleaning than the hole in the top, and we thought the top vent would be nice for the birds. Now that I have a name, I am going to search for remaining Natureline products (like on ebay)? Maybe they made a better front before they went out of business?
Martintown33, as I remember, porches weren’t even offered with this gourd. We improvised with porches from another brand. Due to the curvature of these gourds, the porch angles away from the hole more than on the gourd it was made for. If we took the porch all the way off, it would give the starling more room, or are the starlings pushing on the porch with their feet to get in? I guess purple martins don't really need porches, but they do seem to use them.
Unk Bond, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like anything is the same as the pop-off front of these gourds.
So, already being this time of year, we don’t feel we can have the gourd rack down long enough to do major modifications on this gourd to keep the starlings out. (They are also exploring another identical gourd.) I don’t know what it would do the purple martins to totally replace these two gourds to get those with better exclusion holes?
Until just the last few days, purple martins were occupying these two gourds that the starlings are trying to take over. (One female purple martin died in the “second” gourd with her head hanging out of the hole. We assume a starling did this?) We have “eliminated” one starling that sat on the fence below the gourd rack, but they don’t go down to that fence often. They prefer to stay on the gourd rack. Hubby is hesitant to shoot at them up there.
Between our efforts and the purple martins being fairly aggressive toward the sparrows earlier, they seem to have given up. Now we have these ugly sickening starlings! I wish the purple martins took better turns leaving through the daytime hours so more would be there to help defend their homes!
Matt F., Natureline sounds familiar. Through the searches I’ve already done, I was pretty sure they were no longer available. When we bought them, we had already put starling excluder entrances on our house, but all that was offered on these gourds (other than round) was the oblong. We thought the pop-off entrance might be better for cleaning than the hole in the top, and we thought the top vent would be nice for the birds. Now that I have a name, I am going to search for remaining Natureline products (like on ebay)? Maybe they made a better front before they went out of business?
Martintown33, as I remember, porches weren’t even offered with this gourd. We improvised with porches from another brand. Due to the curvature of these gourds, the porch angles away from the hole more than on the gourd it was made for. If we took the porch all the way off, it would give the starling more room, or are the starlings pushing on the porch with their feet to get in? I guess purple martins don't really need porches, but they do seem to use them.
Unk Bond, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like anything is the same as the pop-off front of these gourds.
So, already being this time of year, we don’t feel we can have the gourd rack down long enough to do major modifications on this gourd to keep the starlings out. (They are also exploring another identical gourd.) I don’t know what it would do the purple martins to totally replace these two gourds to get those with better exclusion holes?
Until just the last few days, purple martins were occupying these two gourds that the starlings are trying to take over. (One female purple martin died in the “second” gourd with her head hanging out of the hole. We assume a starling did this?) We have “eliminated” one starling that sat on the fence below the gourd rack, but they don’t go down to that fence often. They prefer to stay on the gourd rack. Hubby is hesitant to shoot at them up there.
Between our efforts and the purple martins being fairly aggressive toward the sparrows earlier, they seem to have given up. Now we have these ugly sickening starlings! I wish the purple martins took better turns leaving through the daytime hours so more would be there to help defend their homes!
They did offer crescent fronts, so be on the lookout for those.Ginny Pres wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 12:54 pmMaybe they made a better front before they went out of business?