Backyard feeding (1 Viewer)

[BNALady]

I've been feeding our backyard birds for about 6 weeks now and have a question. I've done some searches on the forum, but didn't find the answer, so I thought I'd ask here.

From things I've read, it is recommended to keep the area under and around the feeders clean to prevent disease and protect the health of the birds. Can anyone tell me the best way to do that? We have mulch underneath them and can't really rake the droppings and seed remnants up. Yet it seems as though just turning over the mulch will only let it build up underneath and that doesn't seem like it would take care of the problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[delia todd]

Hi BNALady and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators.

I've moved your post to the Garden Birds forum, as they're rather better placed to be able to answer your questions.

Meanwhile I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.

 

[KC Foggin]

Hi there and a warm welcome to you .
We're glad you found us and please join in wherever you like

In the very beginning of my feeding birds (25) years ago, I tried putting cookie pans under the feeders but that just brought in squirrels and other rodents. so I stopped doing that fairly quickly. Now I mainly feed shell free seeds such as sunflower hearts and the likes and the ground feeders eat what falls out of the feeder so doesn't last long with my ground feeding birds i.e. Cardinals, Thrashers and the likes.

 

[Kits]

Welcome to Birdforum. I hope you enjoy your visits.

The ground feeders clean up any spillage or drops from our feeders.

 

[BNALady]

Hi there and a warm welcome to you .
We're glad you found us and please join in wherever you like

In the very beginning of my feeding birds (25) years ago, I tried putting cookie pans under the feeders but that just brought in squirrels and other rodents. so I stopped doing that fairly quickly. Now I mainly feed shell free seeds such as sunflower hearts and the likes and the ground feeders eat what falls out of the feeder so doesn't last long with my ground feeding birds i.e. Cardinals, Thrashers and the likes.

Thank you for your response! So far, I've only fed sunflower hearts in two tube feeders made of plastic-coated wire. They have a small tray on the bottom that really isn't big enough for the starlings, blackbirds, etc., to land, but they do. Then they run all the little birds off and sling feed everywhere. The Cardinals seem to eat from the feeders and the droppings are only eaten by the squirrels. I put up a third feeder with feed for the starlings, blackbirds, and the bigger birds that were running the smaller birds away by landing on the feeders that only had the sunflower hearts. Now all three feeders have a mess under them! My husband cleaned up everything under the two smaller feeders, removed some of the dirt (the seeds had set up like cement!), and removed the bird droppings. Then he laid mulch down underneath. Quite honestly the area stunk from the seeds laying there, getting wet, and I guess spoiling. We are going to try turning the mulch when the area gets too saturated (which hasn't taken but about 2 days!), but I'm afraid we are going to end up with the same situation: a stinky, seed-covered mess.