Cleaning the bird feeder.
Now that Christmas day is over, we hope you had a great day, we can get back on with cleaning the bird feeder.
Last time we had arrived at the point where the port-holes were to be removed and the debris removed from the tube.
The screws were the key to removing the feeding points but be aware of the small nut on the opposite side of the screw. It is not captive so as you turn the crew you could loose the nut.
To remove the solid base section remove the lower feeding ports and you will notice that you can gently, using a flat blade of a screwdriver gently push the base away from the tube
This has now been done and all the parts throughly washed and scrubbed in warm water.
A note here that we initially used boiling water on the metal bits, thinking that this would kill any bugs. It possibly did however we noticed very quickly that the paint was starting to bubble, so we added some cold water.
This we appreciate will now have affected the paint surface, so we will monitor over the next few weeks to see how much damage has been caused.
To clean the plastic we used warm water and were careful not to scratch the plastic with heavy scrubbing.
A long bottle brush is ideal to get all the way along the plastic tube.
Reconstruction
Is of course the inverse of the construction. We would advise starting with the bottom metal section. This then allows you to install the other feeding ports with the tube upright.
The ports have a locating lug and a corresponding hole in the tube.
The feeding rings just clip into the ports, but make sure you get them the correct way up.
Once all the ports, rings and the lid are re installed a quick inspection and you can refill the feeder with food.
Gallery
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- The feeder is put back together and the base plate re-attached
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- The lower feeding port locates into the metal base.
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- You can see the locating hole for the lower feeding port.
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- Oops – the water was too hot and the paint has bubbled.
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- All of the feeder bits. Note the small nuts from the feeder ports, so you don’t loose them
Further details