Batboxes

[indiaxman1]

Buddy of mine got a bat box recently...wondering what experiences you folks have had with them....placement...upkeep?....we have a number of the critters, and aside from having to evict a few from the cabin, generally see them as a positive

[Radar67]

Swamp Donkey has some up at his place. I've been meaning to put some up, just never got around to it. My understanding is once you put them up, you leave them alone.

[Banjo picker]

I have made a few...I got one up on the barn...and another in pieces that I never put together....I gave a couple to a friend of ours...I don't know if there has ever been a bat in any of them...I got bats so they are living somewhere.   Tim

[Radar67]

Tim, if you have bats living in them, you will see their guano (poop) under the box.

[ohsoloco]

I've been meaning to build one myself.  Every night I see two or three bats puttering around the house    There's lots of plans available if you google it.  From what I've read they should be 12 ft. or so from the ground, and get at least 6 hours of morning sun.

[Burlkraft]

I have a small one that faces south west.
It's about 10 ft. high on my garden shed.
The other night we were sitting on the deck and saw 12 bats come out of the house.
I wudda thought it would be crowded with 4 in there.
I also am accumulating quite a pile of guano underneath the house   ;D ;D ;D

[WDH]

I also am accumulating quite a pile of guano underneath the house   ;D ;D ;D

Bring it to the Pig Roast for the Boss's garden  :D.

[Banjo picker]

Tim, if you have bats living in them, you will see their guano (poop) under the box.

I have never checked for the poo ....but the box is on the end of the barn with a corral around it ....With 7 equines in and out of there every day they might keep it mixed up with their poo.... :D  Tim

[Chuck White]

My brother and I put up a bat-house about 10 years ago and the bats found it right away.

The house is about 4 inches (front-to-back) and 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall and the entire bottom is open.

We put the plastic type window screen on both inside surfaces.  It makes it easier for the bats to crawl in and out.

It was estimated that the house would hold between 150 and 200 little brown bats.

We mounted the bat-house on a 20 foot by 10 inch (on the butt end) diameter tamarack pole and set it in the ground about 5 feet.

Well, to this day, the house is occupied.

[indiaxman1]

Ordered a bat box from an outfit in Va...nice folks....all cedar...guy said bats don't like glued plywood....he did say there might be a delay in sending...due to they bait their boxes with bat poo ....guano....and the scanners in post offices read this smell as potential bombs...guess after Okla. City......looking forward....have several still swooping around in evening

[SwampDonkey]

I keep an eye on mine, but have not noticed any residents. I was out in the back woods one morning last week and before delight I came to a turn in the road. There were about 12 bats flying around in that small section of road. Got no idea where they are hold up unless it's an old car in the woods with a torn inside ceiling for them to crawl up into during daytime. My house out in the woodlot by a beaver pond is on a 16 foot post, so the base is probably more than 12 feet up from the ground with the post base in 2 feet of cement.

[doctorb]

We haven't attracted any bat residents,but the wasps love them.

doctorb

[indiaxman1]

Got bat box last week....the instructions had some questionable brown stains on the paper...bait....mounted 20' up in tree free of branches (bats don't like company or potential predators).....told wife she had to check for guano while she fills nearby bird feeders (I won't tell you her response due to our forum's language rules!)...now if they would just get with consuming all those #%@ mosquitoes

[Piston]

I just came into this section to post a topic on bats, and low and behold I find this one already here  ;D

Are bats mostly good for eating misquitos or are there other advantages to having them around?  Here is a pic of our bat box...... :D :D



There are a TON of bats living inside the loft of the barn, my grandfather used to shoot them because he thought they were bad many years ago, later on he found out they were good for eating insects, now he just lets them be.

I'm planning on restoring this old barn (probably 5+ yrs from now) Do you think if I start putting bat boxes outside around the barn they'll go into those instead?  I know I wouldn't if I was a bat, I would rather be in a nice spacious barn hanging from the ridge beam than a little ole box.  :D

What are other 'uses' for bats.  They sure scare the hell out of me when I walk in and one zooms by my head!  I don't want to get rid of them though. 

I heard they help with reforestation from spreading seeds through the forest but don't know if that is true.   ???

[Onthesauk]

I wonder if you have to find out what kind would use the old barn.  We've had a number of old empty forest service cabins restored and had to build new places for bats to use.  Have it in my mind there are a number of different kinds and live in different kinds of places they will live.

[SwampDonkey]

I'm not real handy to water here so no bats around the house much, quite rare. Out on the woodlot there is a beaver pond or two nearby so that is where I stuck one in. I have seen scat at the base, but that could also be from mice down there. A bear left his teeth marks and claw scraping soon after I erected my house. Do bats eat bears?  :D

[chain]

Any of your bats have white noses? If so , could be the 'white nose syndrome' [WNS]disease which has been recently confirmed in bats in Missouri as well as eleven other States. The disease is said to have killed over a million bats; from what I understand, the white fungus grows upon the bat's nose and affects the hibernation as such, making the infected bat restless and flying out of his roost during winter burning up his heat energy fats thus, the bat dies. :-\

[RynSmith]

Piston, when you get around to restoring that barn you should definitely do some reading up on respirators, etc. for dealing with the years worth of guano.  That is some serious stuff (and good fertilizer too!).

[Piston]

RybSmith,
That is actually one of my concerns.  I know there is years worth of guano (what a fancy word for bat @*#%) up in the hey loft.  I wonder if even after removing it all it will be sort of permanently embedded into the wood?

[RynSmith]

Well, I can't really help you with that, but it seems likely since it's at least somewhat moist when first deposited.  Sorry if that's too graphic.  :D

Also, couldn't hurt to look in to selling it - apparently considered top quality organic fertilizer.  Know any local organic farmers?

[Ron Scott]

Bats are a contributing part in an ecosystem. They play a crucial role in controlling crop and forest pests. They eat large amounts of mosquitos and are a primary predator of night time insects including moths and bettles that damage corn and other commodity crops. They also eat ash borers, the beetles that are devastating the ash trees.

With less bats, we have more insects which means more pesticides. There are a number of bat species. The Indiana bat is classified as an endangered species so it is well to identify the species if you can. All are legally protected.

[indiaxman1]

While dreaming peacefully, I was awoken to the sound of fluttering wings next to my head.   I know that sound, and bound (as fast as an arthritic 62 yr old can bound) out of bed and hit the light.  Sure enough, there on my pillow looking right at home was the little brown bat.  I have removed a number of his cousins over the years from my cabin..flying, crawling, big brown ones, little guys like this.  So wrapping him up in nearby camos, take him outside.   My daughter is leaving for her graveyard shift job asks why dad is standing on the porch in his underwear in 15 degree weather.  I just point to about where the batbox is (it's dark as pitch)...
Who says winter in the woods is boring 

[SwampDonkey]

Now that is interesting, that a bat would stay at the house over winter. They leave for caves on the Fundy coast up here. Your daughter had cause for concern.  ;D :D

[WildDog]

We get a large fruit bat/flying fox down here as well as some insectivorous little bats. The Fruit bats can host the Hendra Virus that transfers to horses and then to humans. (no known cases of bat to human) 60% of people that contract the virus will die, since 1994 only 7 people have been infected by Hendra however 4 perished. At work we treat any ill horse callouts fairly seriously.

[Chuck White]

After my brother and I (read reply #8 above) built and erected the bat house on his property, the attic of his house harbored many many Little Brown Bats and quite a few Big Brown Bats.

Anyway, after the bat house was in-place and some of the bats started using it, he had his house "bat proofed".
Those little bats can get into some very small places.

In the early Fall, the bats would all leave (migrate) heading for warmer climates.
Kind of surprised me when indiaxman1 got woke up by one this time of year.

[beenthere]

indiaxman1 prolly had that bat in the house all along. Finally woke up to it on his pillow.

;D

[indiaxman1]

I am laughing now....but my old blood pressure jumped for sure..guess I need to visit the attic spaces more often....critters come with territory...but don't have squatter's rights....and just glad those fruit/fox bats are south of the equator...glad to provide some new year smiles ;D

[northwoods1]

Last summer I got to witness one of the strangest and most fascinating spectacles of nature that I have ever seen in my entire life while I was staying at this hot springs in Colorado. Actually I got to witness a number of fascinating things there as it was a clothing optional hot springs , but that is a whole other story :D
What it was it this:
http://www.olt.org/programs/bats/bats.htm
From the springs you could hike up to those caves and wait for the bats to come out right about sunset. I thought I would hike up there just for the fun of it , but what I saw completely amazed me. The cave is at 8000' + altitude and it is quite a hike up there.  It was a very nice view from up there you could see clear across the valley to the mountains 10 miles or so away and no development anywhere. I waited and waited for the bats to come out and I began to doubt anything was going to happen , but finally just at twilight I began to hear a fluttering noise and a small stream of bats started coming out of the cave. Since the cave is a collapsed mine they had to come up out of a kind of a deep hole, and first they just came out in the hole and started flying in circles , more and more of them. Then it got amazing... more and more bats began coming out and spiraling around in a huge vortex down in the hole, it was like a whirlwind of bats. Then they lifted up and out over the edge of the deep cavern, and since it was 8,000' altitude they had to immediately begin dropping down into the valley, and there was literally a river of bats flowing down that mountainside. After 5 minutes of a steady stream of them coming out... then they really began coming out I sat and watched for 30 minutes as this stream of bats poured out , over 200,000 of them! It was absolutely one of the most amazing spectacles of nature I have ever seen. They say the bats eat over 1,000 pounds of insects in the valley every night. And it is only the male bats, no females of juveniles from what I understand they live somewhere else.
I know one thing for sure... I am going back to that place :D heck I might even hike back up there to see the bats again  

[SwampDonkey]

The would be something.

I seen caves in Va with bats hibernating in October. It was a tourist stop type of place with a guide giving a talk in the cave. The bats where really docile and clinging to the rock walls and hardly moved.