| First of all let me assure you that the Martins prefer the natural gourds over any other type of housing. We have tried everything and as you noticed on the first page, I had listed that we have only two houses. They are almost identical to the houses below. We have never had a Martin to build in either one of the houses. The Houses are nice, light and attractive but more or less, nonfunctional as far as we are concerned. We are trying at this time to get our Martins to except the Supergourds. We have approximately 30 of the small plastic two piece gourds. The birds will build in them one year and ignore them the next. We never know what to expect. The natural gourds in our opinion, are cooler for the birds and they can be very large. Usually if a pair of Martins have more room then they have larger families. They seem to prefer the natural gourds here, as they are the first to fill. There are some people who have good luck with the houses as both of our brother-in-laws, have metal houses and plastic gourds and have many birds. I think it has a lot to do with what you introduce them too. Of course you have to paint the natural gourds and please paint them white as the Martins cannot distingish the holes on a colored background. A friend of ours has some of the most colorful gourds I have ever seen; Absolutely beautiful gourds, but no Martins. You need to cut a hole in the gourd with a 21/4 inch hole saw. Clean it out, (it's full of seeds) clean the dirt and mud off, drill a hole through the top part of the gourd and thread a length of cord or wire through to hang to the rods, then paint the gourd. You are ready to set up your colony!! |
