Why Gourds vs ????????????

[Guest]

Why were Gourds adopted for PM nesting,why wouldn't just anything work of adequte size and a tunnel entry?

dick

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Gourds are lightweight, you can space the holes far apart to reduce the fighting, martins like them.

Homemade housing is heavy, the holes are too close to each other, and sparrows and starlings like them

There are many other individual reasons. The martin hobby allows each individual to do exactly what they want at their place, no hard and fast rules, just do what you wish, keep out the predators, and build your housing for your maximum enjoyment.

[Guest]

I guess thats most important the PM's like'em

dick

[John & Linda - KY]

One other reason - if you grow your own, gourds are a very inexpensive way to provide housing. -- John

[TIGERPITT]

I grew up in southeastern Alabama and farmers would use all sort of housing for Pms. I remember old plastic chlorox bottles being popular. They were strung up like gourds and the PMs loved them. They were not very attractive but they worked.

Tigerpitt

[Scully]

Well, the Indians WERE the first to put up martin housing, and they DID use gourds

Gourds are also intrinsically cooler, can be spaced for 100% occupancy, are less attractive to S&S, can be put up in a wide variety of ways and parasites have a harder time spreading from one nest to another.

[klcretired]

Thats what i was going to say but scully beat me to it, the indians were the first to have martins using gourd's and they wern't mounted that high in the air either.