I have several bird feeders outside but they get full of Earwig bugs. Any ideas on how to keep them out would be greatly appreciated. I wash the feeders out but they come right back.
We found a fantastic solution for keeping ants and earwigs out of our feeder. Get a plastic takeout container and make a small hole in the center at the bottom. The hole needs to be small enough to require some pressure to pull the cord through, as you want it to be a tight fit.
The container we found fit perfectly on the top of the feeder (see picture below) and has high, smooth sides. Fill the bottom of the container with cinnamon. Firstly, ants don't like cinnamon and it doesn't take long before they don't come calling again. Secondly, the cinnamon coats the sides of the container too and, once the ants and earwigs are in the bottom they cannot get out as they keep slipping down. It did not take long before neither ants nor earwigs were coming around anymore. We keep the container up to prevent this from happening again. The lid on top of the glass cylinder screws off, making it easy to clean the feeder without having to pull off the plastic container from the cord each time.
From what I have read birds will eat the earwigs and earwigs are also somewhat good to have around as they eat other garden pests. As long as they aren't too out of control it sounds like they rec to leave them be.
There are some suggestions on the links below including some safe version so as not to endanger the birds and other good guys. I had heard of the newspaper trick before and it would be free so maybe try that one.
Are your birdfeeders hanging from something or on a post or pole? One of the suggestions was a sticky trap. I remember my folks having trouble in their yard with weevils and they put some sticky trap solution on the trunks of the rhodies to keep the weevils from going up the bush and eating it.
On another note...last year there was something killing birds last summer from birdfeeders...cant remember what it was exactly...something like salmonella..but they recommended people not put their feeders out for the summer months to help. And this way the birds will eat the bugs like they are supposed to instead of being lazy and pigging out on the food in the feeders.
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