Convincing the PM's to use the new house & gourds

[W0X0F]

We have had an old metal house (that came with our house). We got some adolescents in '23, so I put up the double Sunset Inn houses with crescent openings and four gourds with the excluder II openings. We have 3-4 females and 6-8 males. Already two nests with eggs, but all in the old housing. They have definitely shown interest in the new housing, but don't seem to be able to get in.

Do I need to replace the doors on the sunset Inn with the round? Trim the excluder nubs in the gourds?

Of course the HOSP battle is ongoing. We have been using the elevator traps from ...offsite commercial link not permitted... and have culled 32 from the local flock this season so far.

[CraigM]

I have the same thing going on here. I keep an old aluminum, octagon house up so when a hosp lands on it, I can shoot it without worrying if I hit it. I have lots a vacant super gourds available. Yet I alway have a few pair of martins that insist on building nests in that old octagon house. I guess they don't like change.
SW Indiana

[C.C.Martins]

We have had an old metal house (that came with our house). We got some adolescents in '23, so I put up the double Sunset Inn houses with crescent openings and four gourds with the excluder II openings. We have 3-4 females and 6-8 males. Already two nests with eggs, but all in the old housing. They have definitely shown interest in the new housing, but don't seem to be able to get in.

Do I need to replace the doors on the sunset Inn with the round? Trim the excluder nubs in the gourds?

Of course the HOSP battle is ongoing. We have been using the elevator traps from //// and have culled 32 from the local flock this season so far.

I'd leave the new set up just as it is, you did exactly the right thing. New house near the old. Let them accept it on their own. If they want to go in, they will just fine. You have a good mix of martins!
Would not trim those nubs especially if starlings are present. Could make the new house look used, smear a bit of mud around the entrances, and on the porch. it helps.
Glad that trap is working well!

[Condorman]

I saw the same issue up here in North Carolina 2 years ago where home owners put up one of the plastic12 room houses with the crescent entrance holes. Two years ago was the first year and I watched SY males and their mates refuse to go in the crescent holes. I thought maybe the manufacturer had made the crescent holes too small and the birds actually couldn't get in the hole. Final tally that year was one ASY male and mate fledged 5 young. I didn't check this house last year but this year there are 10 pairs in this 12 room house with the same crescent entrance holes, and they're freely going in and out with no hesitation. I do worry about these crescent holes here in the hot humid south where nesting material is built right up to the entrance and the ventilation or air movement has got to be severely restricted. Particularly in some of these "boutique" houses with no ventilation. It's been in the mid-nineties here for a week and the forecast calls for the same the next week and a half. It's got to be incredibly hot and suffocating in those compartments with four or five young crammed in there. Anyway, it just seems like in areas where crescent holes are not common it takes the birds a while to get comfortable with them.

[Phil01]

They will take to the crescent entrances. Just a takes a little bit. I replaced an old plastic house with a sunset inn with crescents this year. It was the last to be used by the SY birds, has 3 pair in it this year. I feel they go for the familiar and easiest entrances first.
Phil