Bird Bath Cleaning Made Easy

Even though summer is almost gone we still have to take care of our birds. This summer one of my main dilemmas was keeping the bird bath clean for the frequent visitors that stopped in. Usually I find the birdbath to be full of leaves, have algae and dirt in the crevices and on the bottom of the bowl.

What’s a girl gonna do…Scrub the mess away. So scrub I did and for a day or two I had a clean birdbath. I have a concrete birdbath and I used baking soda and sometimes chlorine to help get rid of the algae. But with this high humidity and abundance of rain we received this year, I could not keep the birdbath algae free and clean.

So my second alternative was to search the net to see if I could find something that was safe and natural for the birds that might visit.

Some of the methods of suggestions I found were:

• Bleach to be the only real help and then it only lasts for a few days; and of course the bath should be thoroughly rinsed before putting it out again.
• Put water plants in the bird bath. They had used them for over three weeks and the plants were still alive and the bird bath was clean. I just keep adding more water. It really works- especially if you live in a warm climate.
• Add a teaspoon of baking soda with enough water to make a thin paste. Crumple up a plastic grocery bag, or similar item I was going to throw away anyhow. Use the crumpled bag to scrub out the algae with the paste of soda and water. Takes just a few seconds. Rinse out the soda with clear water. Soda is a mild abrasive. You could then rinse with vinegar and water which dissolves any soda traces and also kills germs. I read somewhere that straight vinegar kills more germs than lysol but there is no money selling vinegar as a cleaner.

And my favorite suggestion/idea:

Place a few pennies or copper tubing in your birdbath and your worries are gone!

That sounds too easy! So I am giving it a try. One thing to remember though that pennies dated after 1982 are 97.5% zinc so will not work. Anything before 1982 are 95% copper so should work but if you have copper tubing than that will do the work also.

I’m not sure if this is an old wives tale but if it helps to make the task of keeping my bird bath clean easier than I am all for it!

Tags: bird bath cleaning, Birding, birds