Pine Straw

[roblrich]

This year I am going to need "a lot" more Pine Straw than my three Pine Trees shed. I guess I could use regular straw bailed in Kentucky. But I have always used Pine Straw from my three pines. I have tripled my gourds, and like I said before, I just don't have enough of it, and I can't find it anywhere in Kentucky.

The cheapest place I found online offers 65 lbs of Pine Straw for $69.00, plus $19.00 shipping. Anyone know a place any cheaper? With these prices, regular straw is sounding better and better to me.

[CraigMo.]

Just a thought, you might ask a park ranger in your area if he or she knows where some of these pine trees are in your area. It took me 2 years to find some White Pine trees and they were in the park by my house. Less than 1/2 mile. Excuse me, I didn't really know what White Pine trees were, but I learned in 2 years. Good Luck

[Guest]

I got all the pine straw you want, Ill box it up for you and ship it. PM me your address and I could have it done in a couple of days just cover the cost for shipping.

[roblrich]

Thanks for the tip Craig.

I guess the question I also wanted to ask, "Is Pine Straw that much more desirable than regular straw"? If so, I'll order it.

Being a newly baptized "martin hog", I have always had enough with the three Pines in my yard, but I noticed a distant neigbor putting up some PM Gourds for the first time, and he has added some quality aluminum housing ( I think a couple of Trio's) also. He has had cheap, plastic housing up for the past three years and had no luck attracting PM's as he doesn't keep out the S&S's. So I don't want him getting any PM's with that problem, the reason I have tripled my housing. Now if he gets as serious about S&S control as he has his housing, that will be kool. Than we could work together to draw even more PM's to our area.

[roblrich]

Thanks Greg, you got it!

[Guest]

Go to home depot and buy a bale of wheat straw. They will use water oak leaves and even hay that you feed livestock. And what ever they think would fit in the nest. I've found plastic and wire and sticks. Even grass clippings from the yard.

[Guest]

Hey Robert ,Tamale wraps that you make Tamales with work great and they stay dry and they don't rot. You can buy them at Wallmart or just about anywere. You need to rip them in lenths and mix em in with your nesting material. Ill have the pine straw ship ASAP.

[John Miller]

The reason to consider pine needles, usually soft white pine, is that it doesn't absorb water and won't get soggy. Worst would be grass clippings. Some northern landlords report martins throw out pine needles and will only accept bale straw. You could offer a mix. Compact it down some and maybe make a bowl in one part. Eggs can sift through fluggy pre nest material and get lost.

[Laverne]

Here's my opinion on the subject:

Pay attention to what your colony brings in as natural nesting material and provide more of that for them. You can personally add it to each nest or you can put it in a central location and allow the birds to build their own nests.

The main purpose, at this time of the season, for adding nest material is to give your returning Purple Martins a cozy, warm, cavity to shelter from the cold and rain and ice and snow during this crummy late winter, early spring weather. Grass clippings will work just fine for this purpose. But, if you have many days of rain or snow, the birds may be trying to find a warm spot in a frozen nest. Your location and your weather conditions will all play a part in what you can or cannot use for your colony. Purple Martins have "always" used coarse material to build their nests. They like sticks, twigs, pine needles, straw, (I heard cattails) - I think they use whatever is available in their area. But, they always use something that will drain or dry out. Follow their lead...

When they begin to build a nest they shall become a bit more choosy about their materials. Watch what they pick and next year you will know what they want.

[roblrich]

The PM's in my area use basically a local straw material, because that is what all my farmer neighbors grow around my property, and that is straw for baling. Now straw is for bedding and hay is for feeding for non farmers out there. But would this be the PM's first choice if they had a choice of pine needles? I doubt it.

Laverne is right about frozen nests, as I recently tried to clean out a few Supergourds a few days ago which were sitting outside as I had dragged them down from my shed, and I couldn't get the old, frozen nests mostly made out of regular straw out of the 4" access ports. I couldn't imagine a PM trying to sleep on that frozen gunk in March when it can still get very cold at night around here.

So thanks to Greg, I will "continue" to line my gourds with pine needles, and also offer pine needles on a platform when the PM's start their nest building, something I have never done before. It will be interesting to see if their nesting material choices will change because of the availability of pine needles.

Thanks for all the replies. Since we get a lot of rain in Kentucky, especially in the spring, I am even MORE convinced that pine needles are the way to go.

[CraigMo.]

Well Robert if you are gonna lay needles out for them you might as well throw some egg shells out there too. I put 2 eggshells out every morning before and when its breeding season and before I sit on my porch to watch the martins, they are already on the shells. I do slack off after breeding season probably every other day. I get sick of eating boiled eggs every morning. I rinse the egg shells with water then microwave them for a minute or 2. With my super gourds filled with pine needles last year the martins really didn't add much except for green leaves.

[TreeGreenwood]

The PM's in my area use basically a local straw material, because that is what all my farmer neighbors grow around my property, and that is straw for baling. Now straw is for bedding and hay is for feeding for non farmers out there. But would this be the PM's first choice if they had a choice of pine needles?

As a wanna-be, I bought pine straw (Loblolly aka Southern Yellow Pine needles), raked up Souther White Pine needles, chopped straw into nice 3" lengths and ran cornstalks from the garden through my chipper shredder. I put all of that out on raised trays for the Martins and spread more on the bare ground in my freshly tilled vegetable garden. As an experiment, I built nests using each of the materials with some cedar shavings underneath in hopes of minimizing insect infestation.

Martins arrived and promptly tossed out or pushed aside the pine needles and corn fodder that I put in cavities. The PM built their nests from carefully selected slivers of hardwood mulch from my garden paths and from bits of corn stalk collected from adjacent farmers' fields. They ignored all the material that I provided within 50' of their housing and collected what they wanted from several hundred feet out in the freshly plowed corn fields or from my garden pathways. The female Martins preferred to pull half-buried bits of cornstalk out of the plow furrows rather than sort through the fodder I provided on an elevated shelf.

Critters don't read this forum. They do as they choose. The best you can do is provide a base for them to build on and a smorgesborg of nest material along with some egg shells or oystershell flakes. If your Martins don't like what you offer, they'll find what they want somewhere in the area.

Take care,

Tree

[Guest]

Robert @ Martha, Your pine straw is on the way. check your Pm and mail for messages. Thanks you all for keeping our migrating Martins warm.

[roblrich]

Thanks Greg!

[Guest]

I found some pine needles, about 2 grocery bags worth. Not easy to do where I live

So my questions are:

Are those the the right things to use?
They are pointy at the ends, should I trim off the pointy parts?
Should I mix some hay with them?
How much do I put in each compartment?
Can I put Sevin dust on the bottom before I put in the nesting material?

Thanks
ging