Baby Martin on the ground

Conrad Baker · Mon May 04, 2026 10:54 am

I ran into a unique situation yesterday while checking the Colony. I found a baby Martin (pinkie with eyes closed), under my #1 house (I only have 3). I picked him up and he had several ants on him so I brought him inside and removed the ants with a pair of tweezers (darn fire ants are ruthless). He seemed pretty healthy and couldn't have been there more than a few minutes or the sun would have taken it's toll. With the help of my Wife she held the baby in a soft rag while I lowered the S&K house I found him under.

I have the houses set up with the wall dividers so that the compartments are double size so there are only three compartments on each side- total of 6 for the entire house. I checked one side, and one compartment had 4 eggs, the next compartment had 4 babies with feathers and the last compartment had 7 pinkies, all about the same size and age of the one we had in hand. The other side of the house had four feathered young in one compartment, one compartment had 4 eggs, and the last compartment was empty and appeared unoccupied for the season.

I put the baby in with the 7 pinkies in the hope that the mother will feed it. My concern is, I've never seen another nest with that many babies in it, usually 6 at the most. I got to thinking that maybe Mom threw this baby out because she had too many? She now has 8 to take care of.

Has anyone else seen as many as 8 babies in one nest? If so did Mom discard any babies to make it easier to care for the others?

mjfog · Mon May 04, 2026 2:57 pm

Conrad,
Eight to take care of is gonna be tuff. I would suspect you may find one starves due to feeding competition from older/stronger siblings in a nest that size. If you find this happens again I would be more likely to put the blame on sub-adults rather than mom tossing one of her kids. Maybe you will hear from other landlords. Puzzling. Mike

Conrad Baker · Mon May 04, 2026 3:24 pm

mjfog wrote: ↑
Mon May 04, 2026 2:57 pm
Conrad,
Eight to take care of is gonna be tuff. I would suspect you may find one starves due to feeding competition from older/stronger siblings in a nest that size. If you find this happens again I would be more likely to put the blame on sub-adults rather than mom tossing one of her kids. Maybe you will hear from other landlords. Puzzling. Mike

Thanks Mike, I too thought it would be difficult to care for 8. When I got home today at noon the baby was back on the ground under the house, but this time dead. I'm positive it is the same one, so apparently he was discarded twice by the parent(s). I believe that if a sub-adult was the culprit he wouldn't drop it under the house on two occasions but instead carry it further away before dropping it. Not sure though.

brent · Tue May 05, 2026 8:00 pm

I found a dead chick under one of my houses. Looking at it closely it’s abdomen seemed discolored. I read that parent birds will remove a sickly chick. I think that was the case.

Bird Brain · Tue May 05, 2026 10:16 pm

The mother somehow can sense that the chick was flawed. Sometimes they know before the egg even hatches. "A mother always knows." It was better for her to remove it and increase survivability odds on the remaining chicks. I'm glad you posted this. I've been led to believe that SY males are always the culprits in these situations. Perhaps sometimes they are. I wonder how many times SY males have been blamed for chicks on the ground when it was the mother all along? Thanks for posting this. I learned something.