I did not start getting redpolls until about 10 days ago after I dumped out the Niger seed in my Niger feeder and washed the feeder with soap and hot water and refilled it after it dried. Now I get at least a few and up to 15 or more everyday. There are 5 out there right now.
Sent from my iPhone On Jan 5, 2013, at 11:32 AM, Donna Scott <[email protected]> wrote: Hi all, Before retirement, I spent 15 years in Cornell Cooperative Extension/Food Science Dept. at Cornell doing food safety education all over NYS. This included teaching the mundane but necessary/crucial principles for cleaning and sanitizing dishes, utensils and food prep surfaces. It is important to know that simply rinsing dirty bird feeders in 10% bleach may not be as effective as we might think. Bleach is "taken up" by organic matter, soap, and dirt and becomes ineffective. Therefore, if you haven't thought of this already, - you need first to wash and scrub bird feeders with warm water and soap to remove most the organic matter and dirt, - rinse well with clean water, - THEN dip the feeders in 10% bleach. Air dry so the bleach volatilizes away. Or, you could dry them with a hair dryer. Straight Vinegar is also a good sanitizer that could be used instead of bleach, although it is not as strong. In food service situations we use the strategy of switching sanitizers now and then, from bleach to quaternary ammonium compounds and back, to help combat bacteria and viruses becoming resistent to any one sanitizer. Vinegar could be used at home as an alternate sanitizer, since most people do not have "quats" in their kitchen. Therese O'Connor may want to weigh in on this info, if she has anything to add. Donna L. Scott Lansing Station Road Lansing, NY -- *Cayugabirds-L List Info:* Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME> Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> *Archives:* The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html> Surfbirds <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds> BirdingOnThe.Net <http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html> *Please submit your observations to eBird <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! * -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
