If you had a choice would you rather have a bluebird nest box on a fence post or in the fence post itself?

Question

for farmers or people in agri-conservation

Answer 1

As a bird lover one in the fence post would be nice and natural.

As a farmer you would want your fence posts to be a little more solid than that, so you would probably get both answers.  I like to put my bluebird nest boxes where that I can watch them, so I place the box on a post that I can watch.

Answer 2

On the fence post, as it is easier to replace the nest, rather  than the post.

Answer 3

I live in the high mountain deserts of Idaho (4700 plus feet), AND I'm a small farmer.  Living here in this part of Idaho, we have the mountain bluebird...gorgeous birds!

Frankly, there's a bit of a problem with either.  I have one cat who's an avid hunter.  He unfortunatly kills birds as well as rodents.  He takes the place of the foxes, and coyotes on my farm, since the Great Pyrenees would kill either foxes or coyotes.

I raise goats...the itchiest creatures nature ever made.  They simply love a good scratch.  If they could get near a nestbox, they would itch on it long and hard, totally disrupting the nesting of the poor bluebird.

Several of my horses are the most mischivious, curious critters ever.  They would adore playing with a nest box if they could reach it.

Having them actually IN the fence wouldn't work for me either.  Because of the goats, we use range fence (woven wire) and electric.  There would bound to be a piece of wire going right across the nest entrance.  

Also we stretch fence with a tractor, to get it good and tight.  A fence post that has a hole in it probably wouldn't stand up to that.  

I'd have to go with the nest boxes, since they could be relocated if the location didn't work.  I'd actually like nestboxes that attached to metal T posts, since that wouldn't give the cat purchase to climb up and peek in the box.  I want them with a SHARPLY slopped roof, so the cat has no comfey place to sit and wait for a bird.  

They must also be painted white, so the chicks do not cook in our hot desert sun.

They are such shy birds.  About the only place I see them is at my husbands work....a commercial wind turbine farm.  The wind turbines do not seem to bother them in the slightest.  With so very few people (workers) there the mt. bluebirds seem to do quiet well there.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years