# Martin Gourds -- How far apart??



## sharon (Jan 3, 2009)

We've strung cable between our house and barn, about 20 ft in the air, out in the open...we've got our gourds painted, drain holes drilled, all's ready...but we don't know how far apart to hang them...anyone know??  Thanks in advance!


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## jason4445 (Jan 3, 2009)

Martins are a community bird, they need to be as close as they can be without banging into each other.  Also Martins are generally a field bird and the gourds need to be near fields and the best fields for them are the ones about knee to waist high in scrub.


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## sharon (Jan 3, 2009)

jason4445 said:


> Martins are a community bird, they need to be as close as they can be without banging into each other.  Also Martins are generally a field bird and the gourds need to be near fields and the best fields for them are the ones about knee to waist high in scrub.



Thanks for the info!  Sounds like we're on the right track so far...our farm is part of an old dairy property, and there's hundreds of field or pasture acres that surround us.  We also don't have many trees on our piece, so the immediate area's open, too.  We're also wondering when to hang them???  I've heard by March.  ?????


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## 07FLH (Jan 3, 2009)

I live in North East Georgia and put mine up by the middle of Feb.Birds start showing up by the last week in Feb. and the first week in March.


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## bat (Jan 3, 2009)

*Ditto*

Get them up soon and space them about 18" should do well.  That spacing should keep the gourds from hitting one another.  They actually prefer the gourds to be where the wind does not blow them around so if you can fix them stationary it would be better.  
They may not take to them right away so if you are seeing birds but not on your gourds just have patience.  They are kind of a territorial bird in that they return to where they were raised.  You may find they will not come to your gourds till the first hatch crowds them out of the nest they are raised in.  It will later in the year last year before they finally took to my new ones...  good luck with them.


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## pos13 (Jan 3, 2009)

Not sure about the specs, but I can say that if you are 5yrs old and get caught throwing apples at them by your grandmother the welts from the switch take at least 2 weeks to heal. Good luck with them.


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## jason4445 (Jan 4, 2009)

This place I was familiar with had like fifteen foot poles and three cross poles at the top.  The cross poles held four gourds on each side of the vertical pole or eight per cross pole.  They had four of these poles up around the field and every gourd every year had Martins in them.

Funniest thing a friend built a nice big house and in the front gable paid big money to have like 20 bird nesting holes built into the gables for Martins. This was in a a roomy subdivision.  No Martins came but the pigeons found the bird nesting holes.  This did not annoy my friend he liked pigeons too.  After a few years an odor started to bother them and they hired this company to find the odor cause - he did - great gobs of pigeon poo in the attic.  The bottoms of the nest boxes was hardware cloth.


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