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Bluebird feeding - other (blowfly larva, earthworms, etc.) (Part 1)In addition to Messages that have appeared in the Bluebird Mailing Lists on this topic, the following are on the Audubon Society of Omaha website:
Subj: Blowflies for dinner? Subj: BB feeding experient Subj: Re: BB feeding experient
Subj: Red Worm feeding Subj: Re: Red Worm feeding Subj: Fw: Red Worm feeding Subj: Mealworms vs. Redworms Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 09:24:49 -0500 Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 15:22:08 -0500 Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 23:19:49 EST Last summer here in North Idaho, we supplemented our MOBL diet with pet store crickets. They seemed to enjoy them very much. Does anyone else feed their BB's crickets? We also fed our BB's mealworms and Bluebirds choice suet. Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 14:54:15 -0800 (PST) Hi all, I have had so many winter birds at my feeder already this year. Just to list a few ... Downy Woodpecker, Harris Sparrow, Junco, White Breasted Nuthatch, Carolina Chickadee, Red-bellied Woodpecker, White Crowned Sparrow, then there was this LARGE sparrow like maybe a Fox Sparrow or Larkspur I'm not sure. NOW the bluebird treat ... my daughter has a Bearded Dragon Lizard and I recently got some crickets for him but he has gone into Brumation which is the same thing as Hibernation, so he is NOT eating. I read where you could use them for feeding birds. Just put them in the freezer for awhile and they go to sleep(for good) then put them out for the birds. I tried this and the Bluebirds ate EVERY LAST one of them ... I couldn't believe it. I must have 500 left so I can feed them to the birds... :) Kerry in NE corner of Okla. Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 20:53:44 -0600 Keith Kridler cool days and light frosts in north east Texas I think the insects in Utah were actually locusts, while many people mistakenly call cicadas "locusts" these were actually one of the species of grasshoppers in this instance. I would imagine that they also had their share of crickets during this plague! When feeding orphaned bluebirds we often catch and feed grasshoppers or crickets to them. By squishing the head and holding on to the long legs you can press this food well down into the birds gapping mouth triggering it to swallow the insect. These hind legs have pretty fearsome spurs and spikes on them which could actually hurt the young birds throat if the insect was fed alive and kicking. Adult birds will kill the insects and tenderize them before feeding them to the young birds. Watching them through spotting scopes will reveal that the adults will often break off these hind legs very soon after they catch them. Sometimes they eat the hind legs and sometimes they drop them. (This is in summer when food is abundant!) It might be that they break these legs off knowing that the insect cannot hop away without them or maybe they do this to remove the only real weapon these insects have. One of the orphaned bluebirds we raised learned to break the hind legs off of the crickets about 3 weeks after it was released back to the wild and feeding on it's own, most of the time. It might be interesting to see if other bluebirds in different parts of the country exhibit this trait when feeding on hopping insects this coming year! The more we watch and see what the birds are doing the more pieces we can add to their puzzling life. KK Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 20:08:43 -0400 Haleya Priest Amherst MA Kerry, how do you handle those crickets from jumping away??????? Feed them T-day meals????? Really, I am curious. H Kerry Sweet wrote: Hi all, I read that Hummingbirds eat insects!!..?? Does anyone know if that is true??
It is hard to believe. Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 18:06:51 -0800 Kerry, I feed mealworms to my birds everyday. However, they turn their noses up at crickets. I've offered the crickets alive, dead, and almost dead. I guess they still have plenty of other stuff to eat. Its still quite warm here in Louisiana. I also heard that hummingbirds eat insects. I've never seen one eat an insect. They are too busy working over the flowers and hummingbird feeders.. Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 18:56:53 -0800 (PST) Haleya, I have the crickets in a 10 gallon aquarium with empty paper towel rolls. The crickets hide inside of the rolls. I shake some out into a zip lock baggy and then place them in the freezer for a few minutes(and I mean it only takes about 5 minutes) they look to be dead but maybe they are just to cold to move? do they die that fast? anyway I then dump them in the tray with the mealworms outside and of course the mealworms get eaten first but the Bluebirds eat every last one of them. The crickets never wake up I guess they are dead? It really works!! Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 22:27:24 EST I'm pretty sure they suffocate. I once kept some in a large coffee can to bring home and they almost suffocated. I would have had to put holes in the plastic lid to keep them active. If you put them in a baggy, there's way too little air. tina ... Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 09:47:42 -0600 I've been getting catalogs from a company called The Audubon Workshop and they offer a couple of new products that I haven't seen available before and I was wondering if anybody has tried them with bluebirds and what their opinion was of them. One product is called Bird Grub and consists of roasted caterpillars (waxworms, not mealworms). They are not messy to handle and don't move away from the feeder. The worms are larger than mealworms and the company claims they contain 67% more protein, 5 times more fat, 7 times more calcium, 84% more potassium, and 70% more phosphorus than mealworms. The downside is they are more expensive, $15.99 for 1250 of them. The other product is called Grub'n Suet and is a non-rendered suet block that contains these dehydrated waxworms. It goes for $3.75 for a 4" x4" x 1" cake. I received some of the Bird Grub and my feeder birds seem to devour it. Has anyone tried these products with bluebirds and was it successful?? Also, has anybody tried to raise waxworms like others have done with mealworms?? The Audubon Workshop has a website at www.AudubonWorkshop.com if anybody is interested. The reason I got some Bird Grub was because I received a catalog with a $20 coupon/rebate that can be used towards any purchase so I bought the Bird Grub for about a dollar. Thanks--- Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 10:48:32 -0600 Merilyn Hunter, Hot Springs, Arkansas Jay - I did a similar thing last year - "bought" the Bird Grub with a coupon from the Audubon Workshop catalog. The Eastern Bluebirds here would occasionally pick one up but then drop it. I can't remember seeing any eat these. I used them up by adding them to my own suet mix. The woodpeckers, etc. gobbled them up this way. I wouldn't purchase any more. They're an expensive addition to suet. Then again, "my" EABLs may be spoiled by the availability af mealworms. I haven't been able to get them to eat bluebird banquet, raisins, currants, or any of the other foods other folks feed bluebirds. Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 09:51:28 -0800 (PST) Hi Stan..Last year I put mealies in the Bluebird feeder several weeks before the nesting season & often it was frustrating because other small birds would beat the Bluebirds to the feeder & eat them before the EABL would. The EABL didn't always come when I wanted them to come to the feeder by whistling. This year for the last couple months, I've been putting Dogwood berries & raisins in the feeder & I'm having wonderful success at having all our neighborhood EABL come to eat this. Our EABL come probably 6-10 different times during the day & everyday. If you remember my post a few weeks ago, I said that for a few prior weeks, a male EABL was usually the 1st one on the adjacent fence waiting each early morning shortly after dawn for these berries..The Mockingbird eats this stuff also, & I enjoy watching him, too. When it's not too cold (say above the 30's), I don't need to soak the raisins..just cut them in half & throw them in. I have a supply of Dogwood berries to last me for several more weeks. One thing I discovered about the berries..for the larger berries..cut them in half so the birds can swallow them easily. I saw them having difficulty swallowing the larger ones. But most of the berries are fine for them. I generally put out 20-25 berries & some raisins a few times during the day. I don't put out too much at a time, because I can tell that the birds are eating them up. If the Bluebirds aren't trained to come to the feeder yet, I found by putting Dogwood berries (or any of the other red berry species, Ash...etc.), in the feeder along with the mealies will certainly attract them to the feeder. Put a small leafy branch with a couple attached berries on top of the feeder....Good luck....Horace in NC. Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 12:25:49 -0500 Hello all, If any of you have ever seen a tufted titmouse nest in a natural cavity, I would love to have a detailed description of the nest site. Also, for those of you that are feeding bluebirds, have you ever offered them tent caterpillars. For the most part these pests are not disturbed by birds. If bluebirds accepted them, that would indicate taste wasn't a factor in why birds ignore them, and, it might be the type of nest they use. But if bluebirds did not accept them, I guess that would show that taste, texture or both are the reason they are being ignored. I did watch a Tufted Titmice eat what appeared to be a tent caterpillar on one occasion and it apparently didn't care much for it as it only ate half of it and let the other half fall to the ground. I would appreciate it very much if someone who is feeding bluebirds would offer tent caterpillars to see if they would accept them. Gary Springer Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 11:40:34 -0600 Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas Sunny and 55*F Tent caterpillars are members of the moth family whose larva have short spines protecting them. The greatest enemy of these caterpillars are the paper wasps most of us are so busy evicting from our nestboxes! One of the few birds that eat spiny caterpillars are the members of the cuckoo family (yellow billed in my area). They have the ability of eating these larva and when the spines from the caterpillars fill the lining of their crop then they will shed this lining and regurgitate the lining filled with the spines. They will then be able to eat their fill of these larva again. By tearing the webs repeatedly everyday will allow the paper wasps to raid the nests of the tent caterpillars somewhat reducing their population. You can move a "tent" to a non host bush or tree and the caterpillars will starve to death if not eaten by one of their predators. KK Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 13:57:16 -0500 (EST) Dear Gary, Yesterday I took down a large limb of a (wild cherry?) tree that had a nice tent with many caterpillars, so I put four caterpillars on the platform from which my backyard bluebirds often eat mealworms. The caterpillars were still there this morning, but I was not sure the bluebirds had been at the feeder. When I saw the bluebirds nearby (their nest in the back Peterson box is about finished), I put 8 mealworms and 5 tent caterpillars on the platform. Both bluebirds came, ate eight mealworms, and flew away. I put four more mealworms on the platform with the tent caterpillars, and a few minutes later the female came back and ate the four mealworms and again left the tent caterpillars. [These bluebirds also do not eat bits of raisins left on their platform feeder, and, as far as I know, never go to the suet feeders located 35 feet away.] So, at least for one area in SC, it seems that bluebirds are not a good way to get rid of your excess tent caterpillars. Or maybe these bluebirds are just fussy eaters. Yours, Barry Barry Whitney Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 18:34:24 -0800 Hi all, I'm trying to catch up on email this evening and ran across this subject and reminded me of an incident that my boyfriend shared with me... two years ago when he had an infestation of tent caterpillars on the property (we still check for them regularly) he was out, just checking the trees for damage... suddenly a common grackle landed on a branch next to a tent caterpillar nest, pecked at it, stopped, listened, then finally broke it open with it's beak, scooped out a beak full of caterpillars and took off.... I suspect that the grackle was taking them back to a nest, but who knows... obviously there are some birds out there that will look for this type of insect to eat or feed to it's young... kimmarie :) Buffalo/Varysburg, Western NY Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 07:53:02 -0800 (PST) Greetings to Barry & All interested persons...I've been studying what my EABL like to eat & not like to eat & the "order" that they eat things for over a year now & this is basically what I've found out. In a Bluebird feeder or open bowl, if you put out, say all these foods together ...mealies, Dogwood berries, raisins cut in half, peanut butter suet, earthworms or redworms, Bluebird treat or other suet(which doesn't have any peanut butter..), the EABL fairly consistently eat the above foods pretty much in that order. Of course I've never seen them eat a small amount from all the above foods at one time. If I leave mealies out of the above group(no mealies), they sometimes eat a couple berries & a couple peanut butter bits.. the size of half or small raisins. The main thing I found out from all this is that the EABL almost always go after their favorite foods 1st. The reason I'm studying all this is to find good alternative foods they like instead of mealies & how to feed it, since I think mealies can be somewhat troublesome sometimes...sunlight, excessive heat, cold below freezing, excess water, other birds eating 1st, expense, etc. What I found out about raisins is that if you only put out berries & cut-in-half raisins, they eat the berries & start eating the raisins. Many times when I only had these 2 foods out, they ate both throughout the day..nothing was left in the feeder. I think & know that once they get used to raisins, they like them. Let me say that when any EABL nestlings are born, that I will be putting out mealies. So until that time, Dogwood berries, raisins cut in half, & peanut butter suet bits is working very well. I've heard of several people in the past not having luck with raisins including me until I stayed with in. The EABL just have to get used to them...Horace in NC. Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 13:09:39 -0400 ... Hi Horace, et al: When I started feeding my EABL, I started with mealies. After a time I introduced bluebird banquet and they were NOT AT ALL interested. They seemed to look at me and say, "You've gotta be kidding!" However, over time they started eating the banquet mix. Now I only feed one helping of mealies a day and then they can have as much banquet as they want. They don't mind at all now and eat A LOT of banquet. I know at this point I could drop the mealies altogether, but mealies have become such a part of my life, how could I stop!? What would my teenager do if she didn't find mealworms crawling in her bathroom or bedroom! What stories would I tell if I couldn't tell stories like a client bringing my attention to something on the office rug and commenting, "Gee, what is that worm like thing on the floor?" (only happened once thank goodness) But yes, suet mixes are so much easier to handle and prepare and take care of..... Just to note, my EABL refuse to eat raisins. In fact, I puree mine now and mix them in the banquet, otherwise they get left behind. My dear friends, Mel and Mary Ellen Bolt, feed their EABL only raisins, and there EABL are just fine with that..... And Horace, my EABL will eat their favorite things first as well. They always eat the mealies first. H Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:31:52 EST To Horace and Those who feed suet substitutes to birds, You may want to spike your cornmeal-lard-p butter type mixes with calcium
this time of year and earlier. I believe KK once gave a very good explanation of
egg production and so forth and suggested a calcium enriched diet could be good
for songbird eggs. I've ground chicken egg shells Tom in NW Florida Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:37:13 -0500 Hi Haleya, Horace and everybody!!!! Maryland Bluebirds are picky, picky!!! They prefer the large mealies over the small ones even for 3 day old hatchlings. I put a container of small mealies & a container of large mealies in feeder, the next day checked and found small ones remained, large ones obviously fed to hatchlings (worms are fatter, more fat & protein)- smart birds, they are! The Miracle meal mentioned in Birders World (Connie Toops- April issue) lists my recipe but I also add raisins, left-over nuts & coconut mushed up in food processor. The Blues will consume the Miracle Meal only when they have gobbled up the Mealies. Beats starving. We have lots of wing-waving here in Frederick Co., MD, completed nests bUt no eggies YET! The Bluebirds know more about the weather than we do. Betty Nichols, Middletown, MD Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 21:09:12 -0500 Good evening everyone! I've tried a variety of "treats" for my bluebirds and the one thing they LOVED was frozen blueberries. I'd picked more than I could use and had bags full of blueberries in my freezer. When the poor little things looked forlorn this winter I put out a "baggie-ful" of blueberries on top of a white pail near their favorite hunting spot. They ate them within a day or two all winter long. I ended up buying frozen blueberries at the supermarket (substantially higher prices than the u-pick in season!) for the bluebirds toward the end of winter. I'll be sure to pick LOTS more blueberries than I'll ever need this season for those beautiful little fellows in the yard! I tried putting out frozen strawberries, but the bluebirds weren't interested, only the ants! Happy Spring! Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:08:56 -0500 Hello all, I went thru some of the old posts I have been keeping for future references. I was reading the one pertaing to mealworms from (rainbow mealworms). I checked out there site today. Anyway, they have Mealworms, Rainbow Giant Reds & Golds, Extra Large Mealworms, Superworms, Sweet Worms & Waxworms. I was wondering if, besides the Mealworms of course, I could use any of the Worms? I just want to make sure if there are any of the worms I should or shouldn't use. Thanks in advance, Joleen in Indiana Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 21:20:19 -0500 Joleen Bob south/central Indiana Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 23:04:26 -0400 Haleya Priest Amherst MA I once received a mistaken order of wax worms and super worms and my bluebirds wouldn't eat the wax worms and the super worms were just too big to put out for them! :-) H Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 08:29:21 -0500 .Keith and Sandy wrote: "Tent caterpillars are immune to cyanide in the leaves and they can become poisonous or at least bitter enough that birds will avoid them (? my guess only) but this is a potential way that young birds could die without any pesticides being used in the area. " Here in Brown County, Indiana, we have also had an unusual amount of Tent caterpillars. I have asked several of the long time locals about the birds eating them and they all say the birds never eat them. I know they are not eating ours. Dottie, Brown County, Indiana Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 06:11:49 -0500 Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant Texas This is a little off topic but the implication is a natural occurring poison could affect your birds or some of them. It seems that about 500 foals have died or mares lost their colts in the past couple of months in Kentucky. They believe they have traced it to an unusually cold winter and these suspect deaths are only occurring when the horses were kept near cherry trees. It seems that cherry trees concentrate cyanide in their leaves after long cold winters. A severe outbreak of tent caterpillars this year in the cherry trees may have further concentrated the cyanide from the leaves they ate and somehow the horses have ingested the worms droppings, shed skins or possibly another carrier and this has led to spontaneous abortions in newly bred mares and deaths of very young colts. Tent caterpillars are immune to cyanide in the leaves and they can become poisonous or at least bitter enough that birds will avoid them (? my guess only) but this is a potential way that young birds could die without any pesticides being used in the area. The last time this rare occurrence happened in the horse world was in 1981 and temperatures and tent caterpillars were about the same as this year. Few birds feed on tent caterpillars but I would imagine that any worm that could feed on these leaves and survive would also concentrate the cyanide. More testing and samples will be gone over in the next several months and this is the preliminary findings. Those living in Kentucky might be able to find out who,what and where all of this testing is being done. There is a possibility that it might affect birds to some degree or not at all. Just a tidbit to file away or add to the web of life. Keith Kridler Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 08:20:09 -0400 ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Jennabirds"at"aol.com Hi Dave & All: Before feeding Jumbo mealworms I would need indisputable evidence the mealworms are not fed hormone-laced food to encourage development. I do know the Bluebird parents prefer Large over Medium size mealies for even newly hatched babies. I experimented with BOTH sizes in separate containers within the feeder; the next day, all the Large ones had been fed, the Medium sized mealies remained in container. This was during early Spring - not many insects yet available. I switched to Large following that test. In any event, the parents pulverize mealies for babies before feeding and the Large mealies evidently contain more nutrition. Jumbo sounds even more practical, but I need evidence of NO Hormone-laced feed. I will be interested in reading feedback from others on this subject. Thanks for writing. Betty Nichols, Middletown, MD To All, Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:26:31 -0400 HI Dave, I wanted to give you my thoughts about monster mealies off list..... Even if monster mealies WERE more nutritious, I think I'd stick to medium sized. I don't like small mealies because I end up putting way too many out. Medium sized are just right. With super mealies, I'd still want certain quantity out there and therefore would probably over feed more than I really needed to. This probably doesn't make any sense - truly is not necessarily logical, but being a consumer I figured you'd want to know how your customers felt. Perhaps it is that I like to see my blues get to come back for more - and if I fed monster mealies, they'd come less and I would FEEL like I wasn't giving them enough. Plus I'd see them less. In this case bigger is not better. :-) H From: "paul kilduff" plkldf"at"hotmail.com Paul Kilduff, Baltimore MD I cleaned out our first fledgling box at Oregon Ridge, five EAstern BLuebirds apparently fledged, out of a Peterson with a 1-9/16" round hole. The nest had blowfly larvae in it, and they looked so fat and juicy I was tempted to put them in with my mealworms and put them into the mealworm feeder that had serviced their nest, but I don't think I've ever heard of that, so I hesitated. It would certainly have a kind of poetic justice, for the maggots which had made a meal of the nestlings to be, in their turn, made a meal of BY the nestlings. Plus it's economical! :o) Anyone tried it? Any downside? recovering from the frustrating loss of chickadee nestlings, and grateful for all the great support from the members of this list, Paul in Baltimore From: "Keith & Sandy Kridler" kridler"at"1starnet.com Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas This is one small group of species of insects. This is between 120,000 to 360,000 grasshoppers per acre of land. The 27 grasshoppers per yard is significant only in that this is the threshold the USDA people recommend spraying the grass to protect grazing for cattle. This many hoppers on one acre of land will eat or destroy as much grass as a single adult cow will eat. They are warning the fall army worms will also be in epidemic proportions. I never really thought much about the insect count in my yard until I read this thinking about the people who are furnishing a few mealworms at a time. Each of us could go out and do an insect count in the areas near the boxes and determine the number of potential meals available. We mowed off the daffodil areas this past week and I feel I have about 50 wolf type spiders per square yard! It's amazing how much wildlife lives in such a tiny habitat! Blowflies and maggots: I guess it just sounds disgusting. There might be a problem with the blowfly maggots if they had just fed on a baby bird that had a problem with their blood and the undigested blood were to infect a cut in the birds mouths. I figure this problem to be so remote the birds affected by this probably won't live to reproduce anyway. I posted several months back about "dirty" House Sparrows always taking dust baths and "clean" bluebirds taking daily water baths. I received a post about bluebirds that do indeed enjoy dust baths and within hours I observed Starlings, "dirty" house sparrows and EASTERN BLUEBIRDS feeding shoulder to shoulder on top of a manure pile seemingly enjoying a meal of "baby" flies....I can't think this would be a healthy diet but starlings excel in gathering maggots to feed their young. At this farm about a month ago one of these starlings entered an electrical "knockout" hole, built a huge nest and shorted out the main switch gear cutting off electricity for 300,000 egg producing chickens! A swarm of contractors and electricians "flew" to the scene of the accident to repair the damage caused by the fire from one of these imported European Starling pests! If you think a bluebird gets in a panic when it is about to lay a single egg and it's nest or nestbox disappears you should see someone in charge of 260,000 eggs a day and no way to gather them or anywhere to put them! KK From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] Yesterday, I was reading on another forum about feeding bluebirds. One person stated she fed hers hamburger meat and was explaining how much cheaper it is than feeding mealworms. She said they liked the kind that had more fat in it. What do most of you think about feeding this to bluebirds or the birds? I don’t see how it could hurt them. She said they love it. ...From: Shawn [mailto:shawnee4"at"charter.net] Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 5:37 PM Subject: Re: Feeding Bluebirds Does she cook it or feed it raw? From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:28 PM Subject: RE: Feeding Bluebirds She did not say she cooked it. She talked about the high fat content that
maybe had something to do with their liking it. I wouldn't think she cooked
it. I will try to find out. From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 1:11 PM Subject: RE: Feeding Bluebirds Shawn, I received an answer from the lady (in VA) and she says she feeds it raw to them. She said she ran out of mealworms and decided to try it and they loved it. She said it was coarsely ground with some fat in it. She has continued to feed them. Would any of you feed it to yours? I was just curious to the thoughts pro and con. Evelyn From: Shawn [mailto:shawnee4"at"charter.net] Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 7:09 PM Subject: Re: Feeding Bluebirds Evelyn, Thank you! I might. Would want to check with Cornell or other expert to make sure birds don't have problems with e coli or any other raw mammal meat issues (I know they eat bugs raw, but that is different). Shawn From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 7:22 PM Subject: RE: Feeding Bluebirds Shawn, I re-read her e-mail and she said they like it fresh or frozen. Then,
she said something about putting it in strings on the cookie sheet. ... Evelyn From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 7:41 PM Subject: RE: Feeding Bluebirds I finally saw where one lady says feed the hamburger raw. I wonder what Cornell
has to say about it. Let us know if you check it out with them. From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 9:53 AM Subject: Meat for bluebirds Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas I thought someone from Cornell would comment on this red meat subject since they have the PHD:-)) Botulism can form in meat or egg products when they begin to decompose. Bluebirds NORMALLY do NOT eat dead insects IF live insects are available or unless they are starving or there are large numbers of dead insects piled up (under a street light for example). "Fresh" red hamburger meat probably would be OK for most birds that eat meat or insects. Cooking "old" or "rancid" meat would kill harmful organisms. BUT once you place any meat product (dead, moist insects) out at room temperature
or above freezing and place it on a wood board or even a sterile plate more
bacteria will quickly colonize the food and begin to form harmful organisms.
Young birds would be FAR more susceptible to diseases or organisms than adult
birds. Botulism (MANY different strains of this The key here is "fresh" meat! If you would not DARE to eat food that was placed in your pets dish or on your bird feeder shelf then you need to CLEAN your pets food bowl and sanitize your bird feeders again! Same goes for water bowls and bird baths:-)) Salmonella organisms are found in the gut of almost every living creature but can build up in some meats to the point it will sicken some humans. Some strains of Salmonella result in groups of birds being sickened or killed due to contact with contaminated food sources but normally bad rotten water is the source of "birds dying". Moldy grain or wet grain could create serious health problems for a narrow age or a few species or groups of birds. Aflatoxin is common in grain but is deadly to some birds if found in large amounts (500 parts per million will kill turkey I believe). Once again this is caused by something we cannot see, smell or taste in an amount large enough to be deadly to some birds. Bluebirds can eat many berries that would be poisonous to humans. Humans eat many things that would be poisonous to birds. Chocolate or avocadoes can kill a parrot. Apple seeds can be toxic. It is NOT uncommon for an entire brood of just about to fledge baby bluebirds to all be found peacefully sitting in the nest but very dead in a nestbox with the adults sitting nearby with food in their bills.....Something that did not affect the adults surely infected the young birds before they became "inoculated" to the "infection". From: Evelyn Cooper [mailto:emcooper"at"bayou.com] My bluebirds gobble it up so fast, food doesn't
last long. Mr. and Mrs. I also stop feeding as soon as it is warm. Rather, they abandon the feeder to chase their favorite meal of insects! Evelyn Cooper From: Elizabeth Zimmerman [mailto:ezdz"at"charter.net] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 1:17 PM Subject: RE: Feeding Bluebirds Can't birds get sick from e coli or salmonella from raw meat? Bet from CT From: Shawn [mailto:shawnee4"at"charter.net] Evelyn & All, **** Dear Shawn, No doubt the birds probably like it, but given the variability in meat quality, the hormones injected into meat, and the real issue of spreading diseases, this is not something I would recommend. I think that answers your question. Maybe you'd like to send a post back to the Bluebird-L about this. Anne Hobbs From: Keith & Sandy Kridler [mailto:txbluebirder"at"sbcglobal.net] Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 8:22 AM Subject: Re: Getting to know me ... When we dig daffodil bulbs in the summer we save the white grubs from May beetles and leave them in a dog dish for the Mockingbirds and bluebirds. Cut worms, corn borers (dull brown moth), cabbage worms (yellow butterfly larva) ETC. can all be saved and placed in a bird feeder. Tomato worms make those huge night flying hummingbird moths and I don't kill them as they are a good pollinator for my night blooming gourds. Another host plant for the tomato worms are the Datura or moon flower/Devil's trumpet perennial shrub. Tomato worms also feed on the different species of Paulownia trees. KK |
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