Photos Of Multi-Purpose Pole and Troyer Horizontal Gourds
I have attached a photo of my multi-purpose pole with two modified Trio M-12s which have been converted into six room houses with enlarged compartments. Porch dividers are included to minimize male martin nest domination behavior. There are four Troyer horizontal gourds. All cavities have round holes.
Here is a close up photo of a Troyer horizontal gourd with several martins. The martins love the horizontal depth of the Troyer gourd and the narrow entrance area somewhat replicates a woodpecker cavity turned on its side. This is a very secure gourd and provides considerable protection for the martins. The cling plate provides the perfect support platform for martins to hang vertically from the entrance.
The Troyer horizontal gourd is in my opinion the finest commercial gourd available. You can get both round hole and sreh versions. I use the round hole version.
Hello Steve,
Those are some great pics! I just wanted to let you know what I did on the bottom side of the trio houses! I drilled a hole to put a bolt with washers, nuts, wing nuts, and lock washer and put it thru the hole to let the bolt hang outside from putting it inside of house, then about 3-4 inches outside of house I hang two Natureline gourds from the bolt! I wrap a #12 copper white plastic wire around bolt and tighten wingnut to push the wire to the washer to washer! That hangs the gourd from the bottom side of house! It holds real well! I have two Natureline gourds hanging from each bottom side of trio house! With a total of 6 gourds with the two houses! This makes the Multi-purpose pole look good! Let me know if you are interested in this set-up, I will give better plans to help you! Thanks John!
Sounds like you have created a good way of hanging gourds from a Trio house. Please share some more information about your system. I have several Super Gourds left over and they need a home. Maybe I can hang them from the Trios on my multi-purpose pole. Thanks.
Hello Steve,
I will be off tomorrow putting new tile in two bedrooms for my kids!!! YAHOO! HA! So I will go out to the pole and bring down the house's and give the sizes and on how many nuts, washers, lock nuts, etc.! I will give you that tomorrow!! And you can hang those supergourds off of the houses and you will be glad you did!!! John!
Thanks man! Trios are very popular with martins in our area of northwest Louisiana. Bob has used Trios in his satellite martin colonies for years with great success. I bought my first Trio in 1965 and it is still standing at a residence where my boyhood martin colony used to exist at my Grandparents' old homestead! With some modifications, Trio houses are still some of the best commercial martin products on the market.
My Troyer horizontals are proving to be almost as popular as my comparable naturals.
Steve,
I'm with you, Troyer gourds are tops! Keep the post coming. Cold weather in my area (Missouri) have keep the PM's pretty scarce. Have noticed a few, but until better weather arrives, the PM's and blues only show up on those scare "sunny" days --- no interest in nests at this time. Good Luck with your colony!
Steve,
I'd like to see a picture that shows how the troyer support rods fasten to their center point. Also are the rods your own fabrication or can they be bought specifically for the troyer mounting holes? I prefer the look of your fixed mounts compared to my current setup which uses wire to hold the troyers to my "Add a Rack".
My rods are to thick to fit in the troyer holes and I am hanging 8 troyers on my rack. The 4 hanging directly under the poles are fine but I find it difficult to accurately level the other 4 which are suspended by wire on the 45 degree angles in between the rods. Those gourds tend to sag a little in the back. Also those 4 gourds tend to bounce excessively up and down when the rack is being lowered. Are there any better ideas out there?
For a few days our weather was cold and windy, but the martins survived by feeding low close to the ground or even on the ground to capture small insects.
For several nights we had very large numbers of possibly migrant martins which are no doubt heading farther north. One night we had over 100 new martins it seemed trying to roost at our colonies. So more martins will no doubt be heading your way very soon.
Good luck with your martin colony this season.
Steve
Kent,
The support rods I use for the Troyer horizontals are specifically designed for them. These rods can be bought either for verticals or horizontals and are used on the PMCA Deluxe racks and the multi-purpose poles. The rods are inserted into a slot on the rack hub. I once had problems with the rods actually popping out out due to strong winds. However, the company which sells the Deluxe racks is having me test some special caps that are inserted at the ends of the rods after they are pop into place. So far the caps are working and keeping the rods intact.
I will try to take some close up pictures of the rack hub showing the ends of the rods inserted into place and post them on this thread.
Hello Steve,
I'm sorry that it took me a couple of days to get back to you! But here is the info! You have to drill a hole in the bottom on the side of the trio house. For an example, the side away from the pole! A pencil size hole is all you need to put that size bolt in! You put the bolt inside of the trio house toward the bottom of floor, and remember to leave enough room for the washer to be flush to the side wall inside. And the perch rod on the bottom of house too, that you leave enough room for the bolt, washers, and nuts to be flush to the house on bolt! After you put the bolt on the inside of house with flat washer to go thru the hole to be sticking outside, then you put a lock washer on first on the outside! Then you tighten it. Then you slide two washers on the bolt too! Then hang the gourd on by the #12 plastic copper wire, you only need probably 8-10 inches of the wire to hang gourd. Then you wrap it around the bolt in between the two washers and put the wingnut on to tighten against the washers to snug the wire together! That is all you do and the same thing on the other trio house too! It really looks nice and I now have 4 pairs in the Troyer Horizontal Gourds and two pairs in the Natureline Gourds! All 6 gourds are filled!!!!! They took to these gourds under the trio houses quickly! The trio houses have three pairs and one male looking for a female! I love this multi-purpose pole that I'm putting another one up next year with the same houses and gourds! Please ask more questions on this if you want and will be glad to help! And when you do this, post me a pic! Thanks John!
Thanks for that information and I will see what I can do! We are INFESTED with martins. I have never seen anything like it. Also, my Deluxe rack with the cane pole perches is really popular and the martins sit all around this rack now. Before I added the perches, they were unable to do this.
Sounds like your colony is flourishing. Oh, my Troyer horizontals are also big hits with the martins this year. I will be using MORE of these outstanding gourds next season.
