Black Walnut question

[Dave DeJong]

I have a friend who wants me to turn a couple of functional bird houses and I have a lot of black walnut. I know some people have adverse reactions to this wood and it also has its distinctive aroma. So I'm wondering if this would be a suitable wood for a bird house. I kind of have my doubts but I thought I would throw this out to see if anyone definitively knows.
Thanks
Dave

 

[Tim Connell]

Nothing I've found/read suggests anything wrong with walnut, so I think it would be fine from a toxicity concern.

However, when making a functional house you really need to know what specie your friend would like to attract. Houses built for bluebird for example, the size/depth of the cavity are important for temperature regulation, and the size of the entrance hole is important to keep predators away.

All of the house I've made (from lumber) need ventilation hole/slots under the roof as well as holes in the bottom for drainage.

The only potential concern with walnut would be the dark color retaining more heat than a lighter colored wood if the house were to receive any direct sunlight.

 

[JeffSmith]

I don’t know that walnut would be a good choice for birdhouses. I’ve heard that Walnut shavings are known to be a problem for hooved animals, keep weeds down where they’re scattered and cause problems for those with sensitivity. I’ve noticed when driving through northern California, the walnut orchards are remarkably free of weeds.
That said, I haven’t noticed birds avoiding the same orchards, but then I haven’t looked for them. Seems that since we’re talking about relatively small organisms (birds) it wouldn’t take much toxicity to effect them...and walnut has known toxicity.

 

[Dave DeJong]

Nothing I've found/read suggests anything wrong with walnut, so I think it would be fine from a toxicity concern.

However, when making a functional house you really need to know what specie your friend would like to attract. Houses built for bluebird for example, the size/depth of the cavity are important for temperature regulation, and the size of the entrance hole is important to keep predators away.

All of the house I've made (from lumber) need ventilation hole/slots under the roof as well as holes in the bottom for drainage.

The only potential concern with walnut would be the dark color retaining more heat than a lighter colored wood if the house were to receive any direct sunlight.

Tim-You bring up points that I've had questions about. Right now I know absolutely nothing about bird houses. This was just brought up to me today so it's something that I'll have to pursue. Main question was the black walnut mainly because that's all I have large enough sitting around right now

 

[Tim Connell]

Dave, If your friend has a specific bird species he wants to attract, here is a link to house dimensions for many different birds. You could probably adapt these to a turned house. http://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/bird-house-dimensions.html

Also, I spent some time trying to find any reference to avian toxicity to walnut and couldn't find any. Here is a document from Colorado State Univ. https://csuvth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/Plants/Details/69 The only problems listed are laminitis in horses and poisoning in dogs from a mycotoxin that is produced in moldy walnuts that dogs have consumed. I'd have no concerns with a walnut bird house.

 

[John Torchick]

northern California, the walnut orchards are remarkably free of weeds.

As an aside, there is no grass to allow mechanical pick up of the nuts. I spent some time in Modesto which is the almond capital of the USA. Trivia- 90% of the almonds grown in the USA are grown in the Modesto area. The trees are shaken by a machine and the nuts are picked up off the ground by a machine similar to a lawn sweeper. We stopped and watched this for several minutes. It is interesting- signs along the roads warn of dust storms during high winds.

 

[Owen Lowe]

As an aside, there is no grass to allow mechanical pick up of the nuts. I spent some time in Modesto which is the almond capital of the USA. Trivia- 90% of the almonds grown in the USA are grown in the Modesto area. The trees are shaken by a machine and the nuts are picked up off the ground by a machine similar to a lawn sweeper. We stopped and watched this for several minutes. It is interesting- signs along the roads warn of dust storms during high winds.

Around here the hazelnuts (filberts) are harvested the same way. The orchardists keep the weeds to a minimum by using a chain flail attachment on their tractors. Deposits a LOT of dust on the outdoor furniture and porch floor when they’re doing it.

 

[Davis Stevenson]

Birds usually have size preferences for cavities, with good recommendations linked above.

As far as the safety concerns: they aren't going to be eating shavings or breathing dust (I've seen some corvids eat wood, but you're not building form them!) and there are plenty of cavity dwellers that will nest in Walnut trees.

More of a concern than the Walnut: make sure it is able to be opened and cleaned out each winter. Putting it back up clean will be a better positive for bird health than trying to find an "ideal" wood.

Source: my wife is a zoologist, and we both come from aa professiona bird rehab background.

 

[olaf Vogel]

I have a friend who wants me to turn a couple of functional bird houses and I have a lot of black walnut.
Dave

So you have a lot of black walnut?....send it over here please!


Its my favourite wood to work with. Nice to cut, great color, not prone to cracking, looks awesome!
But it stinks.

Yes, the shavings tend to affect other weed growth, when I toss 40 lbs of it in the woods.
And black walnut tincture is a herbal remedy to kill parasites. (Yeah it works. 10 years of travel to Central & South America proved that....sigh)

And while its possible that some people have adverse reactions, I don't think it's common.
As for bird houses....don't you have a cheaper wood???

 

[Dave DeJong]

For some reason I don't have any problem finding Black Walnut and I have yet to pay for any. Mostly just word of mouth. People around here don't like these trees. They're the last ones to get leaves in the spring and the first ones to lose them in the fall. They're a messy tree-continually clogging up the gutters of the house. I know because I have 2 very large ones in my yard. I live in small town usa and went out to our town's compost pile-which can be a gold mine for wood- last fall and found a whole black walnut tree out there that was cut down and pushed into a pile. I got some chunks up to 14-15" in diameter. Anyhow I filled up the backend of my Jeep twice and could of gotten a lot more. Too much work for a 70 yr old. BTW I like the smell of Black Walnut when its being turned

 

[Larry Copas]

Black walnut will work well for a birdhouse as long as its all black heartwood. Sapwood rots pretty fast but the heartwood is decay resistant. It will also turn grey when exposed to UV and the elements.

It also works for fence posts and railroad ties but haven't seen any used for either in a long long time.

 

[Perry Hilbert]

A now long deceased friend had a business duplicating colonial gun stocks. He got in a load of walnut slabs and inhaled too much dust. Whether just too much of any dust or because it was walnut dust, he spent a few days in intensive care and they flushed his lungs. whatever that involved. He had been doing that with maple and cherry for years at that point with no problem. Wood data base lists walnut as a "sensitizer" and has a list of toxic and allergic affects of various woods. Some can be out right deadly. I know first hand that poison ivy sap in March can eat holes in human skin in about 20 minutes. I was cutting up a poison covered cherry log on an unseasonably warm day and got some of the sap on my skin
https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/wood-allergies-and-toxicity/

 

[Perry Hilbert]

Don't know if black walnut is going the way of the Chestnut, there is something called thousand canker disease killing black walnuts. There are and will be quarantines and some municipalities in PA will not let you remove black walnut wood or branches from their dump sites. This map is a bit dated. It has been found in Colorado too.

https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/...ng/gis-spatial-analysis/tcd-survey-maps.shtml

 

[Bill Boehme]

As an aside, there is no grass to allow mechanical pick up of the nuts. I spent some time in Modesto which is the almond capital of the USA. Trivia- 90% of the almonds grown in the USA are grown in the Modesto area. The trees are shaken by a machine and the nuts are picked up off the ground by a machine similar to a lawn sweeper. We stopped and watched this for several minutes. It is interesting- signs along the roads warn of dust storms during high winds.

Around here the hazelnuts (filberts) are harvested the same way. The orchardists keep the weeds to a minimum by using a chain flail attachment on their tractors. Deposits a LOT of dust on the outdoor furniture and porch floor when they’re doing it.

My brother used to have a pecan orchard and he constantly worked at keeping the orchard floor free of weeds and grass mainly by using RoundUp. He had a huge shaker on one of his tractors that clamped around the tree trunks to shake the nuts out of the trees. Then there was the sweeper that collected the nuts as well as all the dead leaves and sticks that were shaken out of the trees.