When to clean out old bird boxes?
We had birds (blue tits) at who work last year nested in a metal wall mounted cigarette bin, this year we provided a hand-made wooden bird box specifically designed for blue tits and then blocked up the larger holes on the cigarette bin.
The young have since fledged, which is great and you can no longer hear anything inside the box. What time of year should we clean the box out, if at all? Reason to ask is one young bird last year did die (the rest fledged) and was left by the parents however the cigarette bin gets cleaned out by maintenance staff, so the point was moot at the time. This box is not maintained by the same staff but by my work.
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1 answer
It looks like the answer is to clean them out at least once a year, once the breeding season is over and before winter, which would be around the end of August in the northern hemisphere (or the end of February in the southern hemisphere).
If a species has multiple broods, they can be cleaned out between each one, so long as you wait until after the birds have completely left the nest.
The standard recommendation is to remove the materials and then clean the box with boiling water to kill the parasites.
Also see,
- How to clean your nestbox
- The NHBS guide: Where to hang and how to maintain your nest box
- Cleaning Nestboxes
- Audubon Recommendations
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