What Martins Need

• Martins need lots of space around their house. They like to have a house on a tall pole, eight to 18 feet high, with nothing else nearby. The open space reduces the likelihood of predators getting into their nests, and it gives them plenty of room to swoop and dive as they fly in and out of their apartments with bugs for the little ones. A full martin complex will be extremely busy when the chicks have hatched. The adults catch thousands of insects a day for food.
  
  Martins must have a reliable supply of clean water. They often need some supplemental calcium in the form of washed, crushed egg shells or crushed oyster shells, which can be purchased wherever chicken feed is sold.
  
  Martins will chase away starlings and pesky birds. They will also gang up on hawks and crows and nuisance birds that may be several times their size.
  
  

Martin House Features

• Purple martins depend on humans to provide their nesting shelter. Martins are communal birds; they like to live in a group of their own kind. The house should have at least two to three stories. Each story is divided into apartments, or little cubicles, one for each nesting pair. The preferred size for an apartment is a cube 6 inches each way. Build the house so that each floor is a module that stacks on top of another, and make sure that the floors and roof can easily be dismantled. The house will need to be cleaned each fall, and dismantling it is the easiest way.
  
  A small "porch" space should be allowed in front of each apartment, and a little fence or rail should be along the edge of the porch to keep the babies from falling off. It also gives the adults a place to perch when they arrive with food for the little ones, and a perch where they can scan the yard for bugs. The opening for each apartment should be one to two inches from the floor, and it should be 2-1/4 inches in diameter. This size will keep larger birds out, and the placement will help keep the baby martins inside.
  
  There are pivot systems to use with the pole so it can be lowered for access to the house. Protect the house from winter weather by storing it, and then put it up again in early spring before the martins arrive. Martins return year after year to the same nesting spot. As the colony grows, add more floors to the house.