The birds in your garden face a large threat. It’s not foxes, rats or even very clean windows to fly into. Instead, it's trichomonosis. In less scientific terms, it's a disease caused by microscopic parasites in a birds’ mouth.
This can be lethal, causing a large number of deaths amongst British garden birds. While humans can’t catch it and it isn’t considered a concern for mammalian pets, the disease has been slowly on the rise in your garden.
It causes lesion and yellowish, cheese-like growths in the mouth and throat. Where this becomes lethal is that it can make it challenging for birds to swallow food or water.
Currently, greenfinches and chaffinches are most affected, but it can also impact other species such as pigeons and some birds of prey.
How to help limit the spread
Trichomonosis is mainly spread through contaminated water, food and saliva. That means any birdfeeders you have in your garden could become a breeding ground for the infected bacteria.
Not only can an infected bird spread the disease into the bird feeder, but contamination can build up over time. Old seeds, wet food and dirty feeding surfaces are likely to increase the overall risk of exposure.
This is particularly problematic on flat bird feeders. Infected birds who are having issues keeping food down may regurgitate it back onto the feeder, further increasing the risk of transmission.
You don’t need to throw out your bird feeder to fix this. Instead, there are a few key steps to follow. Firstly, try to avoid flat bird feeders. Hanging feeders that are easy to clean and dismantle will be the best choice.
Other than that, hygiene will be crucial. Clean the feeder regularly, removing old food and keeping everything dry. By only offering a small amount of food at a time, it will make sure that food isn’t left out long enough to get contaminated.
Finally, if you see sick birds or regurgitated food, do a deep clean and stop feeding the birds temporarily.
