Our backyard feeders, by crowding birds together, day after day, not only encourages the spread of disease but also produce stress that weakens a bird's resistance. In addition to conjunctivitis, birds can contract salmonellosis, a bacteria similar to that which causes food poisoning in humans, by consuming feces-contaminated seeds. Or they can be exposed to aflatoxin, aspergillus fumigatus, or histoplasmosis, diseases caused by fungus that originates in moldy seed. All of these diseases, however, can prevented if you are willing to follow a few simple rules. First, don't feed birds during hot months.
Heat encourages bacteria, fungi and viruses to grow.
If you are house bound, and birds are one of few pleasures, by all means continue feeding but wash your feeders weekly with a solution of one part bleach and nine parts water. Have someone clean under your feeders weekly by raking or shoveling discarded seeds and hulls and removing them from your yard. Fungi and molds thrive in heaps of rotten seeds. To attract birds during warm months, plant blueberries, blackberrys Spicebush, dogwood, cherry, crab apple, Autumn Olive, sunflowers and Fox Grass in your yard instead of filling your feeders. Begin to feed birds late in October after the first frost.