gourd porches

[wildcatervin]

Had a situation happen yesterday that had never happened before and would like to pass this on to other martineers.At present I have 80 gourds,natural and plastics,All of mine have the inside and outside porches held in place with 2 screws attacking the outside with the insides.Well if you can imagine the outside is 4 inches and the inside is 2.With all the rain and wind we have had the lip of the natural gourd broke,inturn it made the outside swing down,inturn closing the hole so as to not gain entrance.I kept seeing the mother bird going to this hole all day and never thought anything about this.Eating my supper I can see my 3 racks and keppt watching this gourd,then it dawned on me(duh) what was happening.Out of the house I went,droped the gourd rack,and sure enough the door was sealled.I broke the rest off and looked in and there was 5 heads looking at me.I put the rack back up and the mother and father made a fast inspection,That is without the porches,and it was not 5 min before they started to feed the young.My point is if I had not caught this problem,this morning I would of had 5 dead babies.Just something that needs to be considered when doing the walk around.Out of the 80 gourds I have 68 with familys,cant tell how many in each one as they want to leave early if I drop the rack for inspection.Well that is my story and im sticking to it,might help others that could have the same hookup.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Its good that you checked the gourd. I had a similar problem, the gourd got moved during a severe rainstorm, and it got water in it, as it could not drain in the regular manner. I was gone when it happened, but the 5 eggs that were incubating were ruined due to the rain. I like to closely inspect mine after a storm..