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Dead baby bluebirds in house

12 years ago

A few days ago the babies were fine. The babies were feathered and doing fine. I had not seen the mommy or daddy in a few days and assumed that they had flown away. I looked in th house this evening and the babies were dead. I removed the nest and hosed the interior of the house. Cound the extreme heat caused the babies to die? This was the second nesting of the year. I always enjoy watching the bluebirds.

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Comment (1)

dzyg
12 years ago
Sorry about the loss of your Bluebird babies! How sad! It could have been a number of things. Where are you and how hot was it there? It could have been the heat but I have heard of lots of babies doing just fine in this hot hot weather. I added head shields on my boxes for the first time this year to try to keep the box a bit cooler. Blowflies are a big problem this time of year. Were there any grayish short worm looking things in the nest when you took it out? I have lost baby Blues to blowflies before and try to watch the nests for them especially during the second nestings to clean it out or change it if I do see the larva. Also if something happened to one or both of the adults obviously the babies would die, one parent could feed them though and keep them alive. Did you feed mealworms at all? Has anyone around your neighborhood, or yourself sprayed you lawn or yard with pesticides or herbicides? That can kill baby birds when the parents feed them bugs that have the spray on them. Just some ideas, sometimes you just never know. Oh another thought, did you have a sparrow spooker up? Do you have any House Sparrows around, they will go in a nestbox and peck the babies to death, did the babies look pecked at all or where they dead too long to tell? So sorry this happened.

Donna
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