Hygiene at winter bird feeders in a southwestern Ontario city

To further understand the source of the epidemic of salmonellosis in some s pecies of birds using bird feeders in southern Ontario in the winter of 199 7-1998, 124 bird feeder stations were examined for their state of hygiene a nd for Salmonella on 5 occasions during the winter of 1999 in a city of 100 000 people in southwestern Ontario. No Salmonella were isolated from feed contaminated with feces recovered from the feeders. Squirrel-proof feeders were significantly less contaminated with feces than were other feeder type s (hopper, platform, silo), which did not differ significantly in their hyg iene scores. Contamination of squirrel-proof feeders increased significantl y through the course of the study, but other feeder types showed no signifi cant change. Hygiene was poorer if feeders were maintained equally by both male and female household members, particularly as they grew older, but no age or gender effect was observed if only one person was largely responsibl e for maintaining the feeders. We concluded that winter bird feeder station s in a southern Ontario city were not contaminated with Salmonella but that bird feeder stations could be designed better to reduce fecal contaminatio n of feed.