venting gourds and leakstopper installation

Rick H · Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:14 pm

It was a very dry early season here in southwestern Ontario on the north shore of Lake Erie, but very wet and hot in June and July with intense, persistent rainfall. Nestling mortalities, which were around 42/225 or 19%, began showing up during nest checks the first week of July, in parallel with hot weather following the rain. The development of mortalities starting in early July is shown by the green line in the attached graph.

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To prevent this in the future, Tom Sullivan (C.C. Martins) suggested I install vents in the upper side of the plastic Troyer horizontal gourds to reduce nest humidity. Although most of my gourds were only a year old and not visibly worn, I opted to also install metal sleeve inserts (leakstoppers) into the hole that retains the gourd on its metal rod from the rack. Vents and leakstoppers were obtained from PMCA for my 28 gourds. I used a 1" holesaw to drill the gourd for the 90 degree PVC pipe elbow vent and a 1/2 " drill bit to enlarge the gourd support holes to receive the sleeve. Both the leakstoppers and vents were sealed with clear Lexel. The finished gourds with vents and leakstoppers are shown in the second picture.

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. Thanks Tom. Here's hoping.
Good to see martins are back in Florida.
All the best.
Rick

C.C.Martins · Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:36 pm

Very welcome sir. I trust you'll see improvements in hatchling and fledge numbers.
Good call on the stoppers!
Wish you all the best this season,
Tom

Spiderman · Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:39 pm

Adding the vents will eliminate the birds that died from the heat. It will also allow air flow through ventilation to reduce moisture inside the gourds.

It’s a learning experience for each of us. A few years back we had 100 degree temperatures for 42 days. I had 25 babies that would jump everyday. Because of nest checks I knew where they went and put them back each evening about 30 minutes before dark.

I added two 3/4” ells to each of the gourds between seasons and have never had a jumper since.

Good Luck with your Martins this Year!