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The Corroboree
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Yawning Man

Is Birdshit corrosive?

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Hi all

Found something very strange had happend to one of my lophs. It's sitting in the hothouse which occasionally gets birds trapped or whatever. One of them shat of the loph and the shit has actually started to rot the tissue directly under it. The shit was a yellow colour, not typical of the usualy black and white. So i'm not sure if has something to do with the birds diet or not. And it's only been a few days since i last checked in in that time it's eaten a fair amount out of the loph.

Has anyone else experienced this or is it a first haha. I've cleaned it all off apart from tiny amounts of residue in the cracks i cant get too. Hopefully thats enough. Anyone want photos?

cheers

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the white part of bird feces is uric acid, not sure what it means when its yellow. im guessing the uric acid content could account for the damage

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Dude, definitely corrosive. That's why you should wash it off your car as soon as possible too - it will eat your paint. Poor cactus :/

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yeah you should see the roof of my VN commodore, it looks like tommy lee jones' face :o

maybe you can bird-proof your greenhouse somehow?

hope your little friend makes a recovery

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Hey gang

Cheers for replies. I cleaned the excess of then flushed the nooks and cranny with a water sprayer that should have cleared all the gunk out. It's healing nicely now and i got a good look at the shape of the hole where it had eaten through. Tbh it sort of looked like a cavity in a tooth. It actually reached quite deep, amazing as the shit couldn't have been there longer then 18 or so hours.

If i've learnt anything from this it's too regulary check your plants :wink:

cheers everyone

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Hi Yawning Man, bird shit is the shit of all shits. Not only that its highly acidic, it also contains all kind of strange germs and pathogens. I hate all birds but penguins. Especially doves. They are the rats of the skies. bye Eg

Edited by Evil Genius

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I'd have to agree with EG,

It's the bacteria and fungus in the crap that you need to worry about, I'd dust some sulfur in the wound to stop any further rot occurring.

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Ah ok. I'm going into Mitre 10 today, so hopefully they'll have some. If not then would a nursery be the way to go to find some? And funny you mention parasites Eg, looks like i'm gonna have a long run with this loph coz i noticed today a heap of really small holes where some little bug had obviously eaten into it. Only insect i saw was a tiny little red bug. Spider mite?

Any suggestions?

cheers

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Hi Yawning Man, sounds a little bit too desctructive for spider mites. But its definately possible. Spider mites are suckers. Literatelly! The holes they drill are hard to see. Leaves or wounds change color to silver because they suck the chlorophyll out of it. There are red spidermites, so its definately a possibility that you have some. I encluded a pic of them. Maybe you recognize them from the pic. bye Eg

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That's deffinately what i saw, but if they dont chew then i doubt it's them causing the damage. It's all relatively superficial damage atm, but hell it makes such a beautiful plant look lame-o. Does my head in. Thanks eg

cheers

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i too have had some bug problems. ive heard of ladybugs being used as a predator to get rid of them and not harm my cactus (or other plants). is this true with loph??? becaused the rose garden has a major bug problem atm (just forgot to spray with some oil to get rid of em) but the ladybugs are every where the lil bastard of bugs are on the rose buds(figure they've come for a feed). so i've caught a few and was thinking of putting them in the fish tank i used for my cactus germination with my affected loph, is this a good idea or not??? as i hav a few loph seeds in there atm for germination.

cheers

Edited by happy1

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That's deffinately what i saw, but if they dont chew then i doubt it's them causing the damage. It's all relatively superficial damage atm, but hell it makes such a beautiful plant look lame-o. Does my head in. Thanks eg

cheers

Mate if that's what you saw then be careful with other loph(s) in the area, the spider mites spread fairly quickly to surrounding plants - I've found out the hard way.

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