Relevant to all of us who have bird-feeders, the effectiveness of three bird-feeder-cleaning methods were studied in the lab by scientists interested in helping birders and benefitting birds that visit feeders. Although feeders provide supplementary food to wild birds, they can potentially become a site of disease-transmission. Hence, periodic cleaning of bird-feeders is recommended to prevent disease-transmission — but little is known about which cleaning-methods are most effective.
Methods — To gain insight into the best way to clean bird feeders the scientists studied the effectiveness of three cleaning methods to remove Salmonella from feeders: 1) scrubbing with soap and water, 2) soaking in a diluted bleach mix, and 3) scrubbing with soap and water followed by soaking in a diluted bleach mix.
Two different kinds of feeders were used in the tests to remove Salmonella from a) feeders with debris from normal outdoor use and b) feeders without debris. Feeders were inoculated with Salmonella enterica in the lab, then swabbed before and after cleaning to determine the percent of reduction of Salmonella “colony forming units per milliliter?” (CFU/mL).
Results — All of the three cleaning methods effectively reduced levels of Salmonella on feeders without debris. But the presence of “normal-use” debris in feeders significantly reduced the percent of reduction of Salmonella CFU/mL on feeders. The diluted bleach-soak method (2) and the scrubbing with soap and water followed by soaking in a diluted bleach-mix method (3) had a significantly higher percent of reduction in Salmonella CFU/mL than the scrubbing with soap and water method (1) overall.
However, the researchers found that the presence of normal-use debris in the feeders greatly reduced the percent of reduction of Salmonella CFU/mL on feeders cleaned with the scrubbing with soap and water method (1) compared to other methods. Best Results — Overall, the scientists recommend either scrubbing with soap and water (1) or soaking them in a diluted bleach (2) to clean feeders with minimal debris, but suggest a combination of these two cleaning methods (3) if feeders have heavy debris or if diseased birds are known to be in the area The results of this research was published in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology and is cited as: Lisa Feliciano, Todd Underwood, and Daniel Aruscavage. The effectiveness of bird feeder cleaning methods with and without debris, The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 130 (1): 313-320, which you can refer to at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324786061_The_effectiveness_of_bird_feeder_cleaning_methods_with_and_without_debris.
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