Feeding Birds

Many of us feed birds in our gardens. Martin Brant has written pointing out that several bird diseases, including Salmonellosis and trichomoniasis, are on the increase in England at present and that unclean feeding practices can make matters worse. He has noticed bird deaths due to disease in his own garden. The problem seems to be connected with attracting large numbers of birds in one place and the resulting contamination by droppings of food and water resources.

Cleaning seed feeders and water supplies regularly will help, as will removing old food and where possible moving the feeding sites about the garden.

There is useful information on the matter in a leaflet produced by the Garden Bird Health initiative. The leaflet can be viewed here or downloaded from their website using the url:

http://www.ufaw.org.uk/pdf/garden_bird_feeding_leaflet_finalised.pdf

Editor

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Send mail to the editor of the Oxhill News at news-editor @ oxhill.org.uk.

Last modified: October 29, 2007