How often and how do you clean your bird feeders?

MarkEvan

MarkEvan

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It's a bit of an odd question I know but I was cleaning mine out today and got to thinking about how often I do it and whether I was cleaning them right :help:.

Basically I clean mine out (all 8 :gag:) once a month at the end of the month and do so in boiling hot water straight from the kettle....no soap or anything else just boiling water, leave them in for a little and then give them a bit of a scrub over and dry them out.

So how often do you clean your feeders out and in what way :thankyou:
 
Weekly :eek: Guess its going to have to become somewhat more of a regular occurrence.

Thanks Sara
 
I clean mine when they look dirty, have done for the last 5 years of feeding.

If I notice any kind of growing seeds or anything that looks fluffy or furry then they get done.

Mine get washed in soapy water, a bit of fairy liquid gets them cleaner but I do flush them off thoroughly.

All my feeders can be fully dismantled including removable bases, they cost more but are worth it.

Please make sure you thoroughly wash your hands too, there can be some nasty bugs on feeders.

Now how the hell do you keep ferrel pigeons off my feeders :D
 
We give each of ours a clean each time its empty, which is every couple of days, and that includes the trays as well as the feeders.
 
Now how the hell do you keep ferrel pigeons off my feeders

I use two mesh hanging baskets joined together so that I can suspend my seed feeder inside the ball that is created. Works a treat:)
 
Bird feeders...... I'd like to see some birds in my garden. I live out in the middle of the Lincolnshire countryside and hardly see any birds. When we first moved into this property I put it down to the fact that the bungalow was new, but ten years on it's still as bad, not quite sure why. :'(

I was wondering if it's anything to do with what the farmers put on the fields that surround us. The main crops are cereal and potatoes. :thinking:
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We have 2 sets of feeders, one out for the birds and one set that gets washed and then left to soak in water with steralising tablets, then when the ones in use need cleaning then we put the clean ones out and wash and steralise the dirty ones.
 
Mine get a clean about once a fortnight. I have a large seed feeder, a standard size peanut feeder, a feeding tray, plus I make my own "birdcake" that I fill into coconut shells. I often clean out the water tray though, I don't like it when it starts to go merky.

Steve

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The feeders I have decided will get cleaned weekly, thanks for the input guys.
 
depends how dirty the get, if there in places where they stay out the wetthey should be ok to clean once a month just keep an eye on it. my feeders get emptyed once aday so i dont reall have to clean them very often.
just keep an eye on peanuts as there the worse and go moldy quick and carry a toxin that kills birds, if in doubt bin it.
 
I've got about 10 hanging ones with different seeds / nuts in and i'd say i give each of those a good clean every other time they become empty = cleaning a couple of them per week.

I've about 5 or 6 coconuts hanging with a 1/4 of the shell removed. I fill these myself with a melted soya / seed paste which goes hard. These last a while (3 weeks or so) but just give a wash in hot water before packing more mix in.
 
You can get a special birdsafe anti-bacterial cleanr from many bird outlets - C&J wildbird feed or your local RSPB/WWT reserve/RSPCA centre.

Mine get cleaned about every 2 weeks.
 
I clean mine out when the seeds go mouldy :(
But I have to say, we don't get many birds coming to our garden, not sure why? - well, I suspect it's to do with the 5 damned cats next door... there are a lot of birds around, but we only get the odd one to come and have some of the seed.

We've got nijer seed - untouched, a lantern with wild bird seed mix in - untouched, fat balls untouched, peanuts untouched, mealworms untouched :(
It's why I waste so much of the bird food :(

anything I can to to encourage more birds in? - one of the neighbours over the back has loads, we can see the birds almost queueing to have a munch on their feeder :(
 
I probably clean mine about once every 3-4 weeks; when they get dirty basically. Hot soapy water and a good rinse.

Very good point about the toxins on the peanuts. Before stricter standards were introduced 30 odd years ago, lots of garden birds were dying from the cummulative intake of these toxins. :eek:

Racingsnake said:
anything I can to to encourage more birds in?
Click to expand...
I noticed a drop off in bird numbers recently which I attribute to two things. Firstly, I put up a new fatball feeder, which is rather shiney. I have now removed it pending dulling it down a bit and the birds have started returning. Then within the last week, a male sparrowhawk has been in regular attendance which hasn't helped matters but that's another story.
 
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