Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Bat house

Has anyone here put up a bat house on their property? My wife was talking about putting one up and I was wondering are the bats easily attracted to the houses.

Rick, I remember watching a show on bat houses.





Um, that wasn't very helpful was it?

I bought one a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't put it up yet.



I guess that's not very helpful either, is it?

I decided against putting mine up because I didn't want mosquito deaths on my conscience.

Wid
Bat houses work pretty well as about 50-70% become occupied in the first summer after erecting. Here is a link with more details and a bat house plan for DIY'ers. If the first house doesn't attract any bats try a second one.

I haven't erected any myself but a few biologist friends of mine have put up quite a few with pretty good success.

Y'all weird.

I actually have 4 of them up on my property - only wanted 2, but was sent a double order by the company and figured, what the hey.

I had seen the occasional bat circling the house around dusk, about 20 feet up in the air. Wanting to encourage more bats to come to our property for mosquito control, we ordered the triple-celled houses from batcon.org and posted them about 12 feet up some trees.

I'm not sure, but I don't think they have attracted too many bats in the two years that I've had them up. I still only see the occasional bat on the property. Maybe he's a lost scout or something. There's no guano or other evidence of habitation. Haven't seen anything on the rare occasion that I've shone a flashlight up there in the daytime.

I'm wondering if I should have mounted them on poles - would that have made a difference? I know that poles are safer from predators, but I don't think that we have snakes here, just the occasional raccoon, and a bat at the top of the house is safe from any prying arms/hands. Anyway, I didn't want the hassle of finding/installing the poles. According to this page it's OK to use trees, but I probably need to move the houses to new spots. Sigh.

Make sure there's an adequate water source nearby. I wonder if the little trickle of a creek on our property is enough.

Anyway, good luck! I'm eager to hear how it goes.

Ditto to all.

I'll just add that you shouldn't get discouraged if you don't get any new tenants the first year you put them up. By the second year, you probably have some furry little flyers in there for sure.

Oh, and don't paint a bright yellow Batman symbol on them.

My parents have had one up for about three years with no inhabitants. I don't know what the secret is to luring them in - we do have plenty of mosquitos in Houston!

J.P.-
I could've sworn that I read several weeks ago (while researching the idea before purchase) that bat houses do much better "in the clear" on posts, etc...and not on trees with branches.

I plan on putting up a 16' 4x4 for the one I bought. Then I'm gonna draw little cranberry shutters on it just to p*ss Tom off.

I figured as much. A 4x4 sounds like a decent idea. I could borrow a post hole digger from a neighbor and give it a go. We have a drainage field that's about 1/4 acre, otherwise our 2 acres are pretty much branches galore.

No post hole digger?

Subtract a man-point, whoever's keeping score.

My man sheet is in tatters:

-1: no post hole digger
-5: enjoys Zima
+1: enjoys Guinness
-6: giggles moreso than laughs (imagine Homer in giddy delight, or Frank Burns)
+1: has Bowflex
-1: does not use Bowflex

We could go on and on...

Well, to be fair, I like wine coolers and such.

What do you do if they're in your belfry? Just learned from my Dad that they have decided to live in the 2nd floor of his house. Maybe he could tell them the misquitoes are outside. Or maybe he should put a bat house up outside and they would move out of his closet.

Cranberry shutters and wine coolers.

You probably have a full head of hair too.

Ever consider Hormone Replacement Therapy?

Seriously, go get some porn or something. You're scaring me.

Are you saying porn causes your hair to fall out?

Bruce
Heres a Link that provides a few ideas for getting rid of them when they become a nuisance. The most likely concern is the guano. It could contain a fungal spores that if breathed in to the lungs can cause an infection called Histoplasmosis. It's unlikely but possible. Rabies is even less likely, but again possible.

We've lots of bats in Alberta and I have little concern about them. On the other hand Hantavirus from rodents, lyme disease from deer ticks and west nile virus from Culex sp. do concern me. It seems you can't go anywhere these days without something getting you.