Cleaning birdhouses should be part of your weekly gardening practice as it can prevent the transmission of many bird diseases.
Bird feeders in the garden have many advantages. You support the birds and at the same time you can watch their impressive flight maneuvers directly from your apartment. But if you watch the birds in the bird house regularly, you will also notice that the house gets dirty quickly. So do you have to clean bird feeders? We explain why keeping birdhouses clean is necessary, when is best to do it, and how to do it. We also give tips on what to consider when buying birdhouses in order to save yourself a lot of work.
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- Do you have to clean birdhouses?
- When and how often should birdhouses be cleaned?
- This is how you go about cleaning bird feeders
Do you have to clean birdhouses?
Many have long had birdhouses, the cleaning of which is done no more than once a year at the beginning of spring. Therefore the question arises whether one needs to clean bird feeders at all. Birdhouses are the meeting point for birds in the garden and they also eat here. As many pathogens are excreted in the faeces and reabsorbed through food, bird feeders are the ideal place for disease to spread. The answer to the question of whether it makes sense to clean birdhouses must be “yes”. Bird feeders usually get dirty very quickly, be it from rain, which sticks together food, or from birds that leave small piles of poop in the bird feeder.
That too Cleaning nest boxes is necessary once a year, by the way. Because in addition to the birds, parasites and other vermin also often settle in the nest material.
Which bird feeders are easy to clean?
When buying, you can make sure to buy bird feeders that are easier to clean. This saves a lot of time and effort during use.
It is best for hygiene if birds are not in the food. Free-hanging feed silos therefore cause the least amount of effort. Moist, sticky food is difficult to remove and quickly starts to mold. Therefore, birdhouses with a silo that keeps the feed dry are more hygienic.
There are birdhouses that have a removable base plate, which makes cleaning easier. If this is still missing in your birdhouse, you can, depending on the design, simply cut a piece out of a thin wooden board and insert it into the floor of the bird feeder.
Metal or plastic are easier to clean than wood and make it harder for bacteria to survive - so those who want less effort to clean can choose houses made of this material.
When and how often should birdhouses be cleaned?
How often and when to clean birdhouses depends on the type and degree of soiling. The more often the bird feeder is visited, the more humid the weather and the larger the area in which birds can sit, the more often one should clean bird houses. As a rule of thumb, you can use this as a guide to cleaning birdhouses about once a week. The best thing to do is to choose a day when the weather cooperates. The warmer and drier it is, the faster the birdhouse dries and can be refilled.
Tip: There are also often leftovers around the bird feeder. This is because many bird foods contain pods or ingredients that birds are less fond of. These are simply sorted out by the animals and thrown next to the feeder. If you want to avoid that or feed birds on the balcony or terrace, for example, is with our Plantura Scattered feed with high-quality fats well advised. It does not contain any shells and was developed in collaboration with ornithologists so that the composition is perfectly adapted to the needs of the different bird species in winter.
This is how you go about cleaning bird feeders
Cleaning birdhouses can be done in minutes. All you need is a brush, rag, and a bucket of very hot water.
- Discard all feed that is on the feeding surface. Forage that was still in the silo and is dry can be reused after cleaning.
- Roughly brush the feeding surface and the rest of the feeding house.
- Now use very hot water to clean the bird house. Detergents and disinfectants should normally not be added. After all, it is a feeding area and there is a risk that these substances will be ingested with the feed. In order to still achieve sufficient disinfection, the water should be as hot as possible.
Tip: This is where the advantage of removable floor panels comes into play. On the one hand, they are easier to clean, and on the other hand, they can simply be replaced if they are too dirty.
- Let the birdhouse dry well.
- Now it can be filled with feed again. It is better to fill the house with smaller portions more often. One serving should be enough for about 2 days. This results in a lower risk of contamination and mold.
Tip: If you find a dead bird near or even in the aviary, this should be seen as a serious problem. This is because it indicates a high probability of death from pathogens that spread quickly in bird feeders. Therefore, a particularly thorough cleaning is necessary, for which special disinfectants can also be used. In any case, wash the bird feeder thoroughly with water a few more times after using detergent.
What else is there with the proper feeding of birds needs to be considered, we explain in a separate article.