Fleas in nest?

MB12RING · Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:23 pm

I just changed the nesting material for my only pair of martins, the babies are 10 days old today.

That was one of the grosser things I've done lately. The nest was literally crawling with insects. From large blowfly larvae to feather lice, but what suprised me the most were all the fleas inside the nest. Has anyone else had to deal with flea infestations in your martin houses before?

The babies seem fine, there are 5, 1 is alot smaller than the others and by looking at how far behind he is I'd be suprised if he makes it but the other 4 are fat and happy. I can't imagine sleeping in that bug infested cavity at night, Is there anything else i can do to help with the fleas? I know about the seven powder for lice.

The only thing I'm wondering about was I used a layer of Hickory shavings and then straw on top for a base layer and the martins built their nest on top of that, would the wood shavings attract more bugs?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Matt

JamesG · Fri Jul 08, 2011 3:44 am

Matt,
For years that is what we used seven dust for.....fleas.
We would cover the dogs, cats and then throw it around the bottom of the house as well as under it.
It would kill the fleas on the animals in just a few minutes.
Hope this helps.
James

Scott D.- La · Fri Jul 08, 2011 6:10 am

Never seen fleas in a nest before, but have seen plenty Mites and Swallow Bug's. No matter, Sevin will kill them. If you ever get Swallow Bug's, you may have to follow up with Raid after the birds are gone for the year. Just thought I would offer that extra info, as Swallow Bug's can overwinter in Martin equipment and grow huge number's very quickly if not treated.

Louise Chambers · Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:34 am

We used to see a lot of fleas in nests at the PMCA's sites in PA, along with blowflies and mites. Flea larvae appeared in nests as tiny white worms. Fleas will overwinter in old nests, or in cracks and crevices in housing - one reason to remove old nests and give houses and gourds a hosing with soapy water. A 10% bleach solution is helpful.

I don't believe fleas do nearly as much harm as mites or blowflies do, but if their numbers really balloon, they might make nestlings and adults uncomfortable.

The one pest you won't find in nests is lice, which spend their entire life on the birds. Some mites also live on the birds, not in the nests - but most of us have come to know the tiny nest mites that burrow under nest material.

Mary Dawnsong · Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:42 am

Here's a good older PMCA Update Magazine article on external parasites of martins:
http://purplemartin.org/update/Parasites.html

I've seen all of them, including bedbugs.

TX Rehabber · Sun Jul 10, 2011 12:31 am

Louise, You are correct about lice spending their entire life on birds, but they can be transferred to the babies in the nest. If the parent birds have them you can count on the babies getting them as well. If they can & do get out of control, they can also suck the life out of the babies.

I recently had a landlord bring me a jumper, which I had to dust with Sevin before bringing into my house; the baby had a total of 62 of these blood sucking lice on it. I know some of you may not approve the use of Sevin, but I cannot run the risk of contaminating my house, personal birds or other birds that I take back and forth to the Rehab Center, in addition to all the hundreds of birds in the Clinic.

MB12RING · Sun Jul 10, 2011 7:14 pm

Thanks for the info,

I changed the nest again Saturday and put an ample amount of 7 on the floor and pine straw that I put in. There were still a couple fleas in the cavity left from the nest change on Thursday but that was it, no blowfly larva or smaller bugs (they might have been flea larva that I thought were lice)

Texas Rehabber,

When I used to rehab birds of prey here in MI alot of times the hawk babies that I got had some kind of larva inside their ear holes. Would those have been blowfly larva too? They were small, only about 1/4", white and pointed on 1 end. It was not fun trying to pick them out of the poor things ears.

I'll do another nest change at about 20do and see how things look then.

On a side note, I'm still getting lots of visitors this year. This weekend there were a couple different asy males landing on the houses and looking inside as well as several sy males and females, mostly in the morning. I can't wait to see what next year will bring!