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.