![]() ![]() Use proper, animal friendly cleaning solutions. ![]() ![]() Your nectar or fruit feeders should be cleaned when the nectar runs out, or the fruit is spent, OR once a week. You should be cleaning your seed feeders at least once a month, and when there is more traffic to them even more often than that. CLEAN THEM REGULARLY! The more often you clean your feeders the easier it is to do.(If you need help selecting a feeder check out this blog post we put together) With so many flashy feeders on the market, sometimes we get caught up in the glitz and the glamour but, picking an easy to clean feeder will make it so much easier for you to maintain good cleaning habits. Such an easy task, with products you have under your kitchen sink and in your pantry, means healthy and happy birds! By keeping your feeders clean and your seed fresh, you will attract more feathery friends than you’d expect. This can also lead to damage and unsafe feeders, meaning you need to replace them far more frequently. The foul odours unclean feeders produce can attract all sorts of insects, mice, and other unwelcome wildlife. It also attracts unwanted visitors, big and small. In Seed 101, we briefly talked about how detrimental bad seed is for our feathery friends but, what about our Birders? Bad seed and dirty feeders pose a lot of other problems besides being harmful to our backyard birds. Just like we wouldn’t eat off of dirty plates or drink from dirty glasses, our bird friends shouldn’t be expected to either! They may get it from your unkempt feeder but will spread it from yard-to-yard as they go to other feeders to snack and can potentially wipe out nesting colonies if left unchecked. If our bird friends eat seed from a dirty, contaminated feeder, they will most likely get sick and spread the illness to other birds. The perfect place for bacteria, mould, and other harmful diseases to grow and flourish. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 130(1):313-320.A dirty bird feeder is not only an eyesore but also extremely dangerous for our feathery friends. The effectiveness of bird feeder cleaning methods with and without debris. To learn more about Project FeederWatch and join the flock for the upcoming season visit our Project Overview page.įeliciano, L.M., Underwood, T.J., and Aruscavage, D.F. For more information, visit our Sick Birds and Bird Diseases web page. Remember that prevention is the key to avoiding the spread of disease and that you should regularly clean your feeders even when there are no signs of disease. If your feeders have visible debris, be sure to scrub them as long as necessary to remove all visible debris before cleaning them. So what does this mean for FeederWatchers? We recommend that, at minimum, when you clean your feeders you soak or scrub them with a dilute bleach solution, rinse them thoroughly, and let them dry before adding bird feed. Furthermore, the debris-laden feeders that received only the soap and water treatment still had enough Salmonella to risk disease transmission. Additionally, they found that feeders with debris had more bacteria after cleaning than new feeders, regardless of the cleaning method used. However, in both feeder types, the two methods that involved a bleach soak were more effective in reducing Salmonella bacteria than simply scrubbing with soap and water. The researchers found that all three cleaning methods reduced the amount of Salmonella on the feeders. The feeders were tested again to determine how much bacteria remained. The researchers tested three cleaning methods: scrubbing feeders with soap and water, soaking them in a diluted bleach solution for ten minutes, and scrubbing them with soap and water followed by a soak in bleach solution. They applied cultures of Salmonella to the entire perch and seed well areas of each feeder and then measured the concentration of bacteria on the feeder. The researchers gathered data from two sets of feeders: a set that had gathered debris from normal feeding activity and a set of unused, clean feeders. What’s the best cleaning method to prevent the spread of disease? According to an article published in the March issue of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, researchers at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania recently conducted a study to determine the most effective way to reduce levels of Salmonella enterica enterica bacteria on wild bird feeders. Blog Preventing disease: What’s the best way to clean your bird feeders?įeeding birds can be a great source of joy, but feeders can increase the risk of disease transmission in the birds we love if feeders are not cleaned adequately. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |