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Post by martywny on Apr 25, 2017 9:46:09 GMT -5
I've decided to add bats to my current livestock collection consisting of one dog and one soon-to-bee beehive. As with many good intentions I did not have time to build the bat houses and bought two of them online. My plan is to put the houses on separate 16' x 2" diameter poles about 20' out from the treeline. I am always open to suggestions and advice, sooo... Does anyone else out there have experience with bats?
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Post by desertwoman on Apr 25, 2017 10:18:57 GMT -5
That sounds right, martywny although we had our poles interspersed throughout our 180 tree orchard They need warmth so a south/ southeast facing house is best, where they can get 7+ hours of direct morning sun. And the further north you are (which probably means your location) painting it dark brown or black helps warm it up more. The purpose of having them near the tree line is to provide cover from predators, and your 20 ft placement is perfect.
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Post by martywny on Apr 25, 2017 11:24:48 GMT -5
desertwoman good information and I will be staining them dark brown to begin with. Why did you decide to put up bat houses? Mosquitoes? Did the bats make a big difference in your insect population? Metal or wood poles? How high were the houses? How long before the bats moved in? I've been reading to get some background and hope all goes well for my new critters when they show up. My main reason for inviting bats over is to help control mosquitoes. Thanks!
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Post by brownrexx on Apr 25, 2017 17:15:59 GMT -5
We put up a bat house on our former log cabin and we got bats the first year. We got Little Brown Bats and I loved them. Our bat house held about 20 of them and I could sit and watch them come swooping out at dusk. It was so cool. As it started to get dark I would hear squeaking and scratching and then they would let go and drop out one by one and fly away.
During the day a coupled of times I looked in with a flashlight and saw their cute little faces although they did gnash their teeth at me. My bat house was only about 10 feet above the deck.
NOW for the bad part. NEVER put a bat house above your deck. They are super cool but they pee and poop almost all of the time and it stinks!! I had to put a plastic tray under their house and clean it up every so often. At the end of that season we re-located their house so that their excrement landed on the ground and not on my deck. It was a big mess!
Do not paint the inside of the bat house. They like rough wood because it is easier to hold onto.
I don't know if they made a difference in the mosquito population but they were super cool to watch and bats need all of the help they can get due to habitat loss and disease.
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Post by desertwoman on Apr 25, 2017 17:41:56 GMT -5
martywny yes, we put them up for mosquito control . Our immediate neighbor did too. It helped a lot- not 100% but a significant reduction. We were along the Rio Grande so the 'sqitos were outrageous. We used wood poles, simply because we had them. About 15' from the ground (they varied and they were all occupied). I don't quite remember how long it took for them to move in- it was almost 20 years ago- but a few months? Certainly in that first year they went up. Early spring is a good time to get them up.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Apr 25, 2017 18:07:26 GMT -5
Good luck with the bat house, martywny! Looking forward to hearing about how it progresses. I was considering building a bat house, to help with the mosquitoes, but after researching it, I'm not sure that I should, as I don't have any "quiet" areas where I could put the post with the house. Have to find out if this would really bother them enough to chase them away, or keep them away to begin with. I was going to resaw some wood to maybe 3/16" thick on my bandsaw, so that the wood for the slats would be rough, and I was going to "paint" them with some Titebond III diluted with water 1:4, and wipe it off. This way, it will be somewhat waterproofed, but still be rough for them. I have a very dark brown latex outdoor stain that I was going to stain the ouside with. And I was going to put them on a 15' post - metal, figuring that those squirrels left after my trapping could not get a hold on it to climb...but I might be wrong! I probably spent more time researching them, than it would take to build the house! lol
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