How To Paint A Non-Toxic Bird House Successfully

You’ve just spent an entire weekend building a fabulous birdhouse and now you are trying to decide how to paint a bird house. Maybe it would be easier to leave it in its natural condition. The answer is fairly simple. Raw wood will slowly deteriorate over time. The rain, heat, ice and sleet will age the wood and painting will protect the wood from the splitting, cracking and rotting that occurs from Mother Nature and her elements. How to paint a bird house and keep it non-toxic to the birds is another question.

No Lead

Learning how to paint a bird house and making it environmentally friendly can be easily accomplished. When you choose paint be sure that it is not a lead-based paint. Lead is very toxic to both humans and animal. Since birds peck on their bird houses, they will ingest some of the paint and that can have dire consequences. Using a good latex paint is fine. The inside of the bird house is a different story. Baby birds will peck and eat small bits of the inside of the house as they grow older, so the inside should be left as natural wood. Learning how to paint a bird house on the outside is the only part of the house in which you need to be concerned about.

The next step in how to paint a bird house is choosing the color of paint. Bird nests are generally hidden to keep predators away; therefore, neutral colors are the best colors to use on your bird house. Brightly colored bird houses may be beautiful, but it will bring unwanted attention to the birds inside and may pose potential danger to the baby birds. Soft green, tan, or brown will do very nicely as a color for your bird house.

The next step in how to paint a bird house is the actually painting of the house. You have chosen a soft green, latex paint and now it is time to take a small brush and paint the outside of your birdhouse. Once that is finished, a few extra strokes of white and pale yellow paint make beautiful flowers on the front of your house. You can now breathe deeply and stand back and admire your work. You started the weekend project not knowing how to paint a bird house and now your project is finished with a half a day to spare. It really was a simple and quite educational project.

As for color of paint, consider where parent birds build their nests in the wild. The nests are well hidden to keep predators away. Although a brightly painted birdhouse is fun to see and a delight to our human eyes, it will draw unwanted attention to itself, placing the baby birds in more potential danger. Use neutral colors, a soft green, tan, or brown, to paint the house. Bring bright flashy colors into your backyard and garden in the form of garden ornaments or stepping stones or flowers. Help keep your backyard bird families as safe as possible by helping the birdhouse blend into its surroundings.