Garden

[cookinfreak]

I want to get  bird bath for my deck and here is my question. I live in South Dakota so in the winter I won't be able to use it. Will the birds get used to it and it would be bad for them if a water source is taken away? 

TIA

cookin

[skatting44]

 You may want to contact the Audubon society abt your particular area  as to if this  song bird illness has spread beyond Md, Va, Wv , Pa, De,

Per news article :

" : For the past several weeks, Audubon and our wildlife partners have been fielding troubling reports of sick and dying birds across the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia areas. To date, there are also reports of sick birds in Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. While we aren’t yet certain of the potential cause of these reports, we wanted to share details on what is known at this point based on information provided by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center. "

https://md.audubon.org/news/latest-updates-songbird-illness-region

[Dragonflyveb]

There are bird baths with built-in heaters. I set out my concrete bath in the warm months and switch to the heated bath in the winter.

The birds love it. So do the squirrels and whatever nocturnal visitors that stop by. It's like one of those hot water springs with all the snow around the edges. 

Amazon has several available.

dragonfly

[fthunt]

Bad for them?    No

Even humans lost in winter snow.... survive for liquid..... by eating snow.  

Always took mine down when winter showed up.

[LindaSal]

They also sell bird bath heaters which we just hook up in the winter here in New England to our regular birdbath.

It's simple and it plugs into an outside outlet.   They have them on Amazon.

Birds actually are in need of fresh water year round so please find a way to keep the water from freezing up and leave it out for them