The cold freezing temps will stress them a bit, but these temps will not hurt them very much. What hurts the martins in cold weather is the lack of food, as there are no flying insects below approx 50degrees. It depends upon the condition of each individual martin, but if they are in excellent shape, they should be able to survive for 3 to 4 days without any worry...Now a martin that just arrived, that may be weak from the long flight, it could be in trouble...Have you heard about supplemental feeding? If not, many people can tell you how to help the martins out in these situations by feeding them
I have an aluminum Trio, 12 original compartments modified to 6 large. It's two stories, and I had one ASY female return on 7 Feb. I'm not sure if it's one of mine from last year or not, but she's been here faithfully each night. She chose an upper compartment, so I put a 60 watt yellow bug light in the cavity below hers. She seems perfectly happy with the light and warmth! I used a "trouble shooting" light with the metal cage removed. It fits nicely through the enlarged compartment center hole, and I ran the cord through the normal round entry hole and used a lighter weight extension cord to ground level (or in my case, dock level). Today, I went to the local bait shop and purchased 25 crickets, which I put in the freezer for a couple of hours and then removed about 10 of them and placed them in the entry compartment to her nesting cavity. I watched as she returned about 5:20 this afternoon and didn't notice her tossing the crickets out, so hopefully she consumed some. I don't think she had much luck with flying insects today, as the temperature barely reached 50 for a high, and the wind was steady at about 20 mph. It's supposed to get down to 26 tonight and below freezing the next two nights. I'm going to check her compartment after she departs in the morning to see if she consumed any crickets. Good luck with your early arrivals.
By the way, I used to fish in your neck of the woods (Lake Boeuf) back in the 60s and 70s. Great memories!
Ken
Bailey, it is my understanding that birds lose very little heat through their feet, these parts ordinarily being several degrees below core body temperatures. So it iss not quite comparable a human standing with bare feet on a cold metal surface.
Still it seems a layer of bedding material like pine needles couldn't hurt, and many add this pre-season to help attract martins.
A big plus of a house in cold weather is the way they can be heated by a light bulb, as described elsewhere in this thread. As others have pointed out, birds are so well insulated and have such high metabolic rates that they rarely freeze, but rather burn up all their fat reserves producing body heat, the eventual cause of death being starvation rather than hypothermia.
To conserve body heat and hence save energy, a number of martins will pile into a single cavity during prolonged periods of cold weather.
I believe conventional wisdom has it that martins typically begin to die on the third day without food
Some folks feed their martins in cold weather, but a heated house would certainly help them conserve energy too.
Bailey, Aluminum is not the greatest house but they have lasted on the market for forty years so that must say something about them. If the weather turns bad no matter what house or gourd you have it lack of food
that kills more martins! Ray in RI
Hi,
After reading several posts, I have decided to use a thin (1/4 inch) layer of blue builders foam insulation in the bottom of my Trio compartments. It cuts very easily and I was also able to put several drainage (puncture) holes in it. I then spray painted them which doesn't really color the foam that much but it hardens it a little and leaves it kind of "pebbley" which is good for traction .Make sure you paint the side that doesn't have the plastic film on it. I have found that with nesting material, the birds will sometimes move it around so much that it will leave an empty spot in the middle. Maybe I am not putting enough in but I won't have to worry about that this year.
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