My Gourd Rack Design

[Guest]

In looking at other designs and some thoughts of my own I came up with the following for what I plan on fabricating.

It will be three levels with 5 gourds per level. The five spokes/hanging bars if you will, will be equally spaced in degrees as if it were the centers of a five pointed star. The attachment point of the gourds on these bars(one per bar) will be 30 inches fron the pole centerline. The levels will be aproximately 18 inches apart vertically and the middle level will be rotated 36 degrees in relationship to the upper and lower levels so that the gourds on the middle level will fall directly between the upper and lower levels when viewed in plan orientation.

The entrances will be located outwardly on the same axis as the spokes so that when the completed rack is viewed in elevation w/gourds in place the entrances on any level will be approximately 3'-6'' from the entrance both left and right to the adjacent entrances. The distance to an entrance from a top or bottom level gourd to an entrance to the closest center level gourds( remember those spokes were rotated 36 degrees) will be approximately 2'-3".

The spaciousness IMHO of this placement of gourds I feel will cut down on the fighting because the PM's should not feel challenged.This rack inturn when equated to a cylinder would be 3' x 5'. I think thats quit compact with a lot of freedom.

I of course don't know if this arrangement is good or bad but feel as an initial design effort it is adequate. I am a tough skinned old bird so pick it apart and tell where and how to improve. I wll change anything for the better,you all are the experts,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I'm still trying to learn all the acronyms.

dick

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

That sounds excellent. My only suggestion is to rotate the levels so that the bottom level is not directly under the top level, and none of the gourds are directly under a higher gourd. I have noticed that by rotating the levels slightly, that the birds do not poop on the lower gourds, and then the lower gourds look cleaner.

If I was a martin, I would not like to have birds directly above me.

[Guest]

Thanks Emil,I'll do that,as you noted I did rotate the center level but didn't give the bottom level any thought,I was thinking diagonal relationship more than bird poop LOL. That should be an easy fix and i will incorporate that into the design.

dick