Bats

Anyone here having success with bat houses??

We have seen a lot of bats around the neighborhood, but they aren't setting up home in the bat house we have hung up on the south side. It's been two years now, and there doesn't seem to be any residents.

I'm not personally, but I bought a bat house years ago for my dad. He put it up on the west side of their detached garage. I think it took something like 5 yrs before the bats moved in. Now he says he wants another!

Groovey!! I guess I should wait a bit longer. Don't know if they prefer any color or what? We didn't paint the wood and buried it for a couple of weeks in dirt like the instructions suggested before hanging it. I guess the "human" scent takes 5 years to weather?? Thanks for the tip!

I hope you get your dad another one for Christmas...:-)

Ah-ha! Excellent idea! I've been wondering what to get the man who has everything!!

I've never heard of burying it, but if your instructions said to, well then, who am I to say otherwise?? LOL! My dad didn't paint his, he left it as it was. It's made out of hardwood of some sort I'd guess, much like a bird house. I bought it at WBU, if that makes a difference. I do know that his instructions said to paint the roof black, but he didn't. I think facing west, it's probably warm enough?

Excellent idea to bury them for a couple of weeks. I've never heard that before and it makes sense. Thanks for mentioning it.

Here ya go foxnfirefly!

terry, don't buy one! Do your father/daughter project! By the way, if you still by any chance have the blueprints, I'd love to have them sent back to me. I can't find them.

Sort of takes away from it being his Christmas present if he's supposed to do the majority of the building, don't you think? You think my dad is going to let me use his table saw or any other tool he possesses? ;p

And no, I don't have the blueprints....I thought I had saved them, but they're gone. Beats me. Sorry.

Why does burying the bat house make sense?

You have a valid point there. The element of surprise would really be lost if he had to help make his own Christmas present.

Lots of critters don't like the scent of humans. Bury the thing in the ground a little bit to speed up the process of aging then dig it up and install it wearing gloves and you considerably reduce the scent of the maker. I've never read anything on this but it makes sense to me. Would be a lot faster than letting it sit out for a few seasons exposed to the elements.

I figure his box is already full, so they'll go into a new box pretty easily......

Oh you are so lucky! Does he have a Martin House?

No, but he wants one. And somebody was supposed to send me a bunch of Bluebird boxes to put up there, but I guess he forgot about me ;(

I've still got the blueprints for the bluebird houses I made for over here. They're great. I think we've made a sum total of about 50 of them and I kept 9 for myself and put them up here. Those blueprints I could send you. It's the bat house blueprints that went bye bye with the last computer.

I also have blueprints for baffels and sparrow spookers for bluebird houses if you are interested.

The Martin House we have you have seen. It was bought at an auction a long time ago. We rolled it down for the winter. If you would like, I could take a tape measure and measure it off and then I could take a few photos and send it to you for your Dad. You could probably figure something out to replicate the one I have. You're good with wood, I'm really not all that good with wood unless somebody is working with me and showing me exactly what to do.

I have some blueprints, thanks. Mr Bluebird and Purple Martin Man was supposed to send me some already built though. Ah well, guess I'll build them.

Eesh, maybe that's where he disappeared to. He got to the PO to mail out wooden bluebird houses to you and had a heart attack on the spot when they told him what they were going to cost to ship out with the latest and greatest postal rate hike.

Speaking of which, have you mailed anything with any weight to anyone recently? I think you could send a nice big box of air and get hit up with a $15 bill with what the prices have increased to. These new prices are a pretty horrible. Insanely high pricing these days unless you can fit what ever you are mailing into a flat rate box.