How to Clean Your Bird Feeders

Keep Your Bird Feeders Clean

To keep your feathered friends safe and healthy, its important to routinly clean and sanitize your feeders. They get dirty overtime and become a hotbed for disease, basically a breeding ground for bacteria and mould. Birdfeeders are a high point of contact and disease can be easily transferred from one bird to another. Therefore, it's very important you keep your feeders clean.

Materials You Will Need

• Gloves
• Brush and/or Toothbrush
• Dish Soap
• Bleach
• Hot Water
• Rake

7 Simple Steps

1. Put on gloves
2. Fill a tub with hot water and dish soap, put in bird feeders and allow to soak for 10 minutes
3. Scrub each feeder down with brush of choice to loosen up lodged seeds in all crevices
4. Fill a tub with a bleach solution of 9:1 hot water and bleach and allow to soak for an additional 10 minutes (9 parts hot water, 1 part bleach)
5. Rinse well and allow to dry completely
6. Rake up under your feeders to dispose of all fallen seeds and debris
7. Wash your hands immediately with soap and water, salmonellosis can be passed to humans

To ensure the best success during migration, be sure to have your feeders clean and full during this time, offering a variety of different birdseed for all birds to be satisfied. Another great addition is a water bath for birds, not all birds eat seeds, but all birds need water!