How to Properly Clean Out a Birdhouse

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How to Properly Clean Out a Birdhouse
By Alvin Loh

You have placed your birdhouses out there on your backyard and have started to attract birds. Fantastic ! Now, birdhouses are just like any other living quarters. You still have to do house work on it, albeit on a smaller scale. The fact is, setting up decorative birdhouses is only half the battle. You will have to monitor and maintain your birdhouses after you have set them up to keep them as good functional birdhouses. After you have set up your birdhouses, especially birdhouses that you have placed outdoors, there will bound to be problems of fungus growing or parasites or light damage due to the occasional attacks by a opportunist predator. Hence, it is important to build or buy a birdhouse that will allow easy access to its interior for cleaning and monitoring purposes.

Let's talk about predators that may be present in your birdhouse. A functional birdhouse may not only attract its share of predators from backyard animals like squirrels and cats, some species of birds may also be harmful to the nesting birds that are inside your birdhouse. A couple of examples from these species of birds are the House Sparrows and the European Starling. They are widely seen in the country and have a huge population across the country. However, they are mostly an unwelcomed presence because they tend to be aggressive towards other birds that may be nesting in the birdhouse. They chase out and seriously harm other species that are nesting and after that, build their own nest on top of the previous nest.

To control their widespread population, measures have been taken to keep their species number in control. They are usually controlled by traps and shooting and removal of their nest on a regular basis. It is not against the law to deal with such pest species. However do note that for other endangered species, it is an offence to capture, keep, move or harm any of them including their eggs and their nest.

Therefore, if you have a birdhouse that is taken over by any of these two species, be sure to completely clean out their nest. You can also use other methods like customizing your birdhouse entrance opening hole to be only big enough for the species of bird you want to attract to prevent Starlings from entering your birdhouse. Some other methods including trapping them or closing up the birdhouse in winter time to prevent Starlings and Sparrows from invading your birdhouse.

For those of you who place your decorative birdhouses outdoors, you will also need to take special note when you clean out a birdhouse. Birdhouse cleaning should be done at least once a year. When a birdhouse is placed outdoor, there are increased chances of fungus and bacteria growing due to the moisture from the rain. To clean out the birdhouse, you should wait until the birds have finished breeding. First, clear out the old nesting materials and scrub the interior of the house with a mild bleach solution. Remember to not use strong detergents and chemicals to clean the interiors of the birdhouse as it may be harmful to birds. After scrubbing and washing the interiors of the birdhouse, you should then wait for it to dry completely before closing the birdhouse. Also, check the birdhouse to see if there are any damages such as small wood chips and exposed nails, these small damages can cause very serious injuries with the birds.

As such, no matter you are buying decorative birdhouses or building wooden birdhouses, it should be a good functional birdhouse and should be easy for you to clean the interiors. This will mean that you should build or buy a birdhouse that can be opened on one side with hinges to avoid disturbing the birds and the nest inside as much as possible.

Alvin is a avid bird watcher. He enjoys creating decorative birdhouses and is always trying to build a great birdhouse. Alvin likes to share birdhouse tips with like-minded people too.

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