Hi Guys,
Anyone here ever build themselves a bathouse?
I’ve had enough of the mosquitoes around here. They are terrible this year. Every year I say I’m gonna build one then I don’t. So, maybe I will get off my lazy butt and put one together.
Anyway, I think I have a good idea of how to put one together, but I’ll take any tips ya got.
Also, how do you induce the bats to move in? How long before they find it and decide to stay?
Thanks.
-Sawdaddy
Replies
I have seen a couple of plans, usually they resemble an upside down desk organizer... 2-3 slots open from the bottom so that the bats can get up inside. I need to build a few myself, and hang them on the ends of my shop. Bats are well known for readily occupying such houses here and they do keep the insects down.
Try
http://www.eparks.org/wildlife_protection/wildlife_facts/bats/bat_house.asp
just google bat houses. You'll get a lot of hits.
I saw your thread and thought you were asking about building a bath house. I couldn't figure out what that had to do with mosquitos. I think the bats would get too fat to fly after feasting in my yard for a while. I haven't been able to let my daughter outside to play since the third week of july. I dread having to get tools out of my storage shed because they are so bad.
Thought you ment................
Build Purple Martin nest box. They are as hungry as bat's
Our whole house seems to be a bat house. Middle of August every year the beloved bats return to Danno's house just like the swallows return to Capistrano or whatever. I'd like to send you mine! One was flying around a couple weeks ago and flew to the enclosed front porch. Wife slams the door (to keep it out there), couldn't have timed it better--one totally flattened bat. Sorry Grandpa Munster!
I did call someone who wanted bats several years ago when we had one in the house. He came over with heavy gloves and grabbed it and took it home in a shoe box. He had built a bat house. All I remeber was that it had fins and was open on the bottom and had sides a a shed roof to keep rain out.
Also, how do you induce the bats to move in?
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Nice!
Bats don't like big bat houses.
Is this not a bat house?http://www.oboylephoto.com/state_hospital/index.htm;)
Batty people lived there.
Heck, batty people live here too. But how do you build a bat house that looks like BT?
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Or perhaps this one:
http://www.floridabats.org/CBH_Articles/UF-BatHouse.htm
I like the guy standing under it without a hat. Is that rain?
Of course, one of the other lessons is that if you build it, they may not come, at least not right away.
Regrettably, it just collapsed. Too many bats...
http://www.alligator.org/articles/2009/08/17/news/campus/090817_bathouse.txt
The ones I've seen shots of are basically just gable roofs on poles, with the roof rafters spaced very close together.
I would assume that Google could find all sorts of plans.
http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/woodwork/ww15/
http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/bathouses/bathousecriteria.pdf
http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/bathouses/attractingbats.pdf
I built a couple a few years back. Sizing the slots is important, they need to be close enough to keep warm.
One other thing I learned is to plan the location carefully, bats poop where they sleep. I hung one over a friends firewood pile and after the bats moved in, it made a mess.
I'll double down on exactly what RH just said - slot spacing is the key, and don't put it over a doorway!I hung my last one up in a tree.-t
Thanks for the replies everyone.Yeah David and rnsykes, the mosquitoes are SO bad here this year. I read where an average bat will eat 500 mosquitoes each hour. I hope they DO get fat. No one in my neighborhood wants to get out and do anything. They can only donate so much blood.Shoemaker, A purple Martin house is on my list too. I know they are hungry for mosquitoes just like bats. I think Martins feed during the day and bats at night, so maybe I'll have a good one-two punch for those damn bugs.Danno, I'd take those bats!Jeff, I'm looking for a used searchlight for my very own batsignal...RedfordHenry and WebTed, Do you know how big the slots need to be? And thanks for the tip on location. I didn't think of the bat #### piling up under the house. Might have saved me a headache there.bd and restorationday, Thanks for the links.
I got my bathouse slot sizing info off some bat guru's website. I don't recall exactly, but I did learn that if the slots are to large, the bats just won't hang out there. Sort of like making a birdhouse with the hole to large. If the bird doesn't feel cozy, it'll just move on.
Good luck.
Care should be taken in attracting bats. Reports of bats with rabbies are on the rise in the mid-Atlantic states. You should contact local authorities.
This is the one I built (the bigger the better). The effective size of the slots was variable due to the use of warped and wavy junk plywood I had (this is good since one size doesn't fit all bats):
Bats are constantly exploring their environment so they will find it, but may only use it as a roost, rather than home at first. May take a few years to become occupied. Smearing some guano on the house can help.
That bat dung is suposed to be one of the best fertilizers around.I also read some were LEDs do not attract mosquitoes. and plain old Listerine sprayed around help keep mosquitos away.
No kiddin'! Listerine as a repellant. I'll have to try that. Seems too easy...
Thanks for posting those pics. They cleared up a lot for me on the interior of the bathouse. I can see the spacing of the roosts in that second pic.
I think I got it now.By the way, that bathouse looks like it will hold quite a swarm of bats. That seems like it would put a dent in my mosquito problem...