Bats for insect Control

Hello;

I was thinking of putting up a bat house to attract bats to our yard, but I wonder if just putting up a house for them will make them come. Is there some sort of "bat bait" that will make them roost? My reason for wanting bats is mosquito control, they were really bad this year.

Thanks,

Maureen

Hi Maureen, In what state do you reside? Tell me a little bit about your property. Actually, please describe it for me if you feel comfortable doing so. I'm looking for ponds, prairies, trees, proximity of neighbor's homes etc. I need more information from you before I can take a stab at this.

If you are in the midwest, I have bat house plans I would be more than willing to e-mail to you as well as photographs of the completed product.

I've seen but never used bat attractants, and wonder if I should.
We've put up two bat houses a few years ago, and they still insist on using the shutters of our house to roost in.

In researching why they are not using our provided houses, I've come across several important points that seem to apply to all areas of the country.
1) Give the house a southern exposure, but not necessarily full sun.
2) Place the house 15-20 feet above the ground.
3) Do NOT paint or use other chemicals.
4) Make sure it it stable - do not mount to a tree or pole that can easily be shaken or sway in the wind.
5) Make sure the house has a large landing pad. - I found this one interesting myself. Bats won't fly up into the open bottom of bat house. They must have a place to land just underneath the house, and then they will climb up inside. Lattice, wood with grooves cut into it, or a metal grate or mesh would work fine for this. There are a number of bat houses available at home & garden centers - very few that I have seen have this feature.

If you're looking to make your own, there are plenty of plans online like at the Bat Conservancy website: http://www.batcon.org/bhra/economyhouse.html
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Back to the point of using bait for a bat house - there are products available, like here:
http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/bats/bat17.html (The first resut Google came up with)
However, the Bat Conservancy claims that there is no proven lures for bats. Build the house, and they will come. There is plenty of good reading here on the subject:
http://www.batcon.org/bhra/attracting.html

I should add that even though we have bats, they in no way provide total control over our mosquitoes, which was your goal in keeping bats. They will certainly put a good dent in them, but your you may want to combine bats with the mosquito dunks to really reduce the mosquito population.

Good luck! Whether you want to attract bats as predators or simply because you think they're cool, they are one of those animals that carries an undeserved bad reputation. They are really useful, contributing members of the ecology.

There is a book out there that may be of interest. The Bat House Builder's Handbook by Merlin D. Tuttle and Donna L. Hensley. It provides wonderful information and is most probably available at a local library

I'll add to this based on my personal experiences and based on using a bat house design shared with me by a "batter" from the Mid West. The completed product is approximately 3' high by about 2.5' wide and is spacious enough to accommodate a colony and I am more than happy to share photos and blueprints with any one who is interested. In my area we have little brown bats and big brown bats which are much more likely to use bat houses than many of the species of bats down south. The little brown bats and the big brown bats especially like it up under the eaves. They are also two of the species most likely to occupy buildings.

For anyone not interested in constructing their own bat house from plans, Here's a great design that has expansion potential and the owner of the company is extremely well versed on areas of concern to batters and he will spend time with anyone who contacts him-
http://www.maberrybat.com/belfrytowerext.htm

1) The primary function of a bat house is as a nursery/incubator. This is why they need to be exposed to sunlight in order to create the internal temperatures needed for the young to survive (over 100 degrees for many species).

2) In our area, painting the bat house is recommended to help to create the proper temperatures within the bat house. Here, we use a knights armor gray outdoor latex to better absorb heat. Lightest grays or reflective off whites for southern areas, medium steel grays or beiges and tans for my Midwestern area, and dark grays and browns for northern climes.

3) Regardless of what blueprints one uses, please select wood that is not treated to avoid birth defects. We used untreated oak for the outer and on the inside we used untreated rough sawn cedar.

4) The inner "cells" of bat houses should have horizontal "steps" to be able to give the little ones a helping step up or down. We achieved this by using rough sawn cedar but added horrizontal incisions by using a dremel tool. Others have used V gauges while others have used hardwire cloth. A few have used metal grates however this might not be a great idea as If a little bat gets his toe stuck he might not be able to chew his toe off to free himself if a galvanized grate was used.

5) Idealistically, bat houses should be mounted under the eaves at an elevation of around 25' preferably facing sw or se. Try to avoid a full southern exposure as we don;t want to cook them. The height at which a bat house is optimally installed will vary from species to species but about 20’ seems to be the minimum for bats native to my region as a 20 foot clearance underneath is required in order for them to release from their upside-down position, unfurl their wings, and to attain lift. Bats need a little "swoop" space to be able to take off, but if the area below the house is clear (no shrubbery, power lines, etc), the conventional wisdom is the higher the better.

6) Bat houses mounted in trees are virtually never occupied because bats don't like to have to negotiate branches and things when they're flying in.

7) In my area, bats will generally occupy them as fast as you can make them and install them. They are migratory and in the spring they seem to be always be on the look out for suitable areas in which to raise their young. We have several different types of bats and the bat houses fill up quick due to loss of habitat. This being said, not all areas are like mine. One could conceivably do everything by the book and based on the species present in their area, a bat house could conceivably take several years to be occupied... if at all.

8) Bats are very tidy so one does not need to take a bat house down and clean it as one would a Martin house. This means that one does not need a pole that comes down. Bats are extremely fastidious housekeepers.

9) Never had occasion to use bat baits however I am told they were ineffective by those experimenting with the use of them.

10) I do not have a landing pad under any of our bat houses and they are being used. I'm thinking this is going to be dependent on species and a landing pad should be added to any bat house to better insure occupancy.

11) Bats do make a sizeable dent in the mosquito populations which is a bonus in my area where spraying is disallowed.

Best wishes to anyone out there trying to create habitat for these little critters!

I'd like to share this with anyone reading this thread, it was sent to me by a friend-

There are more species of bats in the world than any other type of mammal - over 1000 species. Nearly 1/4 of the world's mammal species are bats.

The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny

The tiny wooly bats of West Africa lived in the large webs of colonial spiders

There are frog-eating bats, and bat-eating frogs

One little brown bat can catch 1,200 mosquito-sized insects in one hour

Seed production in the agave plants from which tequila is made drops to 1/3,000th of normal without bat pollinators

Wild specimens of important agricultural plants such as bananas, breadfruit, mangos, cashews, dates and figs rely on bats for pollination and seed dispersal

Bats are the slowest reproducing mammals on earth for their size, making them exceptionally vulnerable to extinction

More than half of American bat species are in severe decline or already listed as endangered

Bump for terryr.

Bat House = A pile of rocks with a central cavity that is darkened and warm. Build yourself a rock garden with a central dome with sticks and an opening that is above the "cave". Copy nature. Provide a food source IE misquitoes. Provide an access for you later to use the guano. Steel lid, wooden cover etc. keep it like a cave.

That will work just great for the species of bat indigenous to your region but not for us my friend. The directions above are for folks in the Midwest- wanna come and check out my bat boxes baby. Rock piles of any sort are great for snakes and other critters around here. We love rock and stone piles.

You just don't know how to attract hungry bats. Bats in boxes are lazy and don't even know how to fly. They just eat cheerios, and dead flys. Hee Hee

Oh nooooooooooo, tell me it ain't so!

Sofer! You aren't insulting my beautiful bat babies are you?

I love every bat I meet because they are the main source of Rabies continuing as a virus in our domestic animals. They often get caught when they become infected and guess who gets bit by them before they die? As a child I had pet bats as an adult I watch and enjoy the sonic marvel at dusk and enjoy its effect on the economics of my veterinary profession. PS I have never yet seen a rabid animal so my joy is not Old Yeller getting sick.

You and your wife really need to come visit us some day. We could sit out in lawn chairs at dusk with adult beverages and watch my sonic marvels.

I would so enjoy a glass of tea (long island) and a discussion with you Equilibrium. My only problem is your too smart for me and I'm not good at not having my own opinion. Though I can learn from yours. It would be fun. Some day when we head back to Michigan to see family. Steve.

Ah ha ha, Back when I was in college my "friends" told me that Long Island Ice Tea was the drink for people like me who didn't like the taste of liquor and that if I was going to drink something, I needed to order one of those to at least try something alcoholic. I liked it. Barely noticed the taste of the liquor just like they said. I think I spit on all my friends by about the time I got to my second Long Island Ice Tea just before I fell off the bar stool and bonded with the floor. Can we say unconscious? Perhaps a Long Island Tea after this many years might not be a bad idea particularly if I am in a lawn chair close to the ground.

Psst, I'm not that smart but I do type fast.

When we first discovered Long tea we were skiing up at Whistler and were staying at the Fitsimmons hotel. They have a big hot tub on the roof and we introduced a few Canadians to it and look out. One fell off the roof into the snow below, another had a broken arm with a cast and he just pulled it in the water and it floated there, the last one we saw the next day riding up the chair and he didn't remember us at all.

Hmm, that about sums up my experience with Long Island Ice Tea and I consider myself most fortunate that I didn't break anything. Nowadays I drink about a glass to a glass and a half of wine a few times a year and call it a day. I have had something called a Mike's Hard Lemonade but I still drink all of one of those and call it quits. I never could drink. Makes me fall asleep. Now that I know what is in Long Island Ice Tea, I can't believe I didn't taste all the liquor in it. In retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't need to be scraped off the bar floor with a snow shovel back then. I was definitely plastered and I never even saw it coming.