I finally lowered all my gourd racks and houses and just started some cleaning! I removed the doors and nest trays from my two Trendsetter houses but still need to clean out the rooms. Just started cleaning some of the gourds but haven’t taken them off the racks yet. After cleaning the gourds, my plan is to place them in a new utility building which I haven’t bought yet!
When I clean my plastic gourds, I usually don’t wash out the insides but will clean off mold/mildew and martin poop from the outsides. A bleach and water potion does a good job. I generally dump out the old nests but leave any dirt scar on the bottom and sides of the gourds. Why leave the scar? I believe martins like that lived in look and they readily nest in cavities with old nests in them. Plus the dirt scar helps create a rustic surface on the slick plastic and this may help to keep nesting material from sliding around too much. Before I raise my housing for the next martin season, I always pre-nest my gourds and houses with a substantial nest of pine straw and sometimes even add a handful of dry oak leaves to the nest bowl. My pre-nests blend nicely with any dirt scar.
I do wash out the rooms on my Trendsetters with a hose as the dirt can clog up the tracks where the doors slide in and out. Too much accumulated dirt in the rooms may interfere with the ease of inserting and removing the nest trays. Plus the Trendsetter porches and roofs do become covered with martin poop which may require washing to remove. I dump out the nest trays but don’t scrub them clean. My nest trays are painted dark brown.
I will treat my houses and gourds with Sevin to kill any parasites that may overwinter. Before I raise the housing in January I add a small amount of Sevin (1/4 to ½ teaspoon) to the nesting material to help control any parasites that the martins bring with them. Later in the season I may re-treat with Sevin if I find parasites such as mites in the gourds/houses during nest checks.
My martin colony did well in 2019 and I attracted between 340 and 350 pairs of martins. I believe 1200+ martins fledged. My next door neighbor Bob attracted between 150 and 200 pairs of martins and fledged well over 500 youngsters. So we hosted 500+ pairs of martins and probably fledged close to 2000 babies.
I replaced two of my 12 room Trendsetters with two new 24 gourd Super Systems; there are two Trendsetters remaining, a 12 room house and a 16 room house. I took the Trendsetters down and gifted them to a good friend who has a thriving martin colony. Both Super Systems are on the old ground stakes for the Trendsetters, but I still need to install the winches on both poles. Forty-eight new Troyer Horizontal gourds with tunnels/porches will be on both racks next year. I still like the Trendsetters a lot and they are my favorite house, but I prefer gourd racks. My gourds are usually better occupied than houses as gourds provide more territorial privacy between pairs and tend to minimize nest domination behavior. I will eventually replace the remaining two Trendsetters with gourd racks but will keep the houses for the 2020 season.
Here are some photos of my martin colony with the gourd racks and houses lowered. If you look closely, you may be able to see the two new 24 gourd Super Systems that replaced the Trendsetter houses. I still need to add winches to the poles and eventually the gourds. For some reason the photos when linked from Photobucket don’t link in full size to the Forum. In the past I believe they did! I don’t know if this is a Photobucket or Forum issue or maybe me!
