as bat season is starting up here i am starting to get some calls. i would like to know if any of yall have tried using any bat houses? just looking to for something extra to offer my customers because of the number of insects that the bats will eat. also have yall tried any of the bat call lure and does it work ?

We will sell a bat house if they want one.


I think there are some bottles of lure floating around. It isn't used.

We have many many clients who either decide to buy one on their own and want it mounted somewhere or want us to build and provide one. We are happy to do either.

Don't use lure ourselves but to each his own. Bats have been finding their own roosts since before we started giving them our houses and houses built for them (bat houses) by us.

We encourage people to go with at least 2 plus chamber style boxes to provide more thermal variability and more growth potential if they get lucky enough to have bats adopt the
structure once up.

WNS (white-nose syndrome) has given a lot more people more understanding of bats though honestly most clients I have even those who don't love bats due to having them in their
attic or home still appreciate the various insect killing they do.

Bat houses are a good conservation measure for those who want to do that sort of thing, even if unoccupied folks get talking about bats in a positive light and that helps buffer the
insane amount of bad PR they live with (both real and completely mythical).

If you look online you can see there are a gazillion websites selling various wooden boxes, more makers than you can shake a stick at, so that shows there is a big market whether the
bats take to them or pass them by.

Pretty easy answer on bat houses in my experience.

If a bat house is built correctly (and solar friendly) and addresses the best estimated size needed for the colony acceptance and giving colony growth some consideration, installed prior to eviction and attached close to the original bat entry point, you will have a much greater chance of acceptance and occupation.

Other then that they may only be in cases insect and wasp occupation areas and/or a conversation piece ornament. We are getting more requests for bat house installations then ever before. You must give the customers the facts as you know them and allow them to decide it they want them installed or not.

We have had very high inhabitation percentages over my years in direct access proximity attachment of a bat house.

I have become a fan of bats as I've learn more about them.

On every bat job that I do, not only do I suggest bat houses but encourage them. I try to explain to the customer exactly why it's to their benefit for the bats to stay around and try to alleviate their fears. I will build, sell and install bat houses for anyone who wishes.

I have even given discounts for those customers who had me put them up!

I recently did a bat job for a guy who wanted them out of his garage but still wanted to keep them around. He had done some research on bats and bat houses on line and had purchased a three chambered bat house of what appeared to be good quality. Not only did I hang it for free but gave him 20 dollars off on his bill.

I do not offer them, If bats are being a problem why would you encourage them to hang around. its like add boxes and other junk out side a house that has a rodent problem to give then anther place to stay

Jay,

Ordinarily, I would agree with you for the most part. But when it comes to bats, I see them as "The Good Neighbor". Okay, so you don't want them living with you in your house, but they are good to have around.

Once I get them out of the house and seal off their entry points, I don't worry about them getting back in. But if they have another place to go, not only do they stay and help rid the neighborhood of pesky bugs, it could help keep them out of the house. There are those times when we evict them from the attic only to have them return and set up shop in the garage or storage building. Add a bat house for them to go in and it could help keep them from finding homes where we don't want them.

Just because of the sheer number of bugs bats consume each and every night, they are good to have around. Take mosquitoes, for instance. Mosquitoes can carry diseases that are harmful to man. Every mosquito that a bat eats is just one more that can't bite me.

Same goes with snakes, as far as I'm concerned. People freak out when I go out and get the snakes out from under their house or out of their shed and they ask me what I'm going to do with them. I tell them, "Take him home and turn him loose under my house." Yes. I have snakes under my house, but I don't have MICE! I know of no diseases that can be transmitted from snake to human. You can't say the same about mice and rats.

So, you can make the argument that bats and snakes help to keep us healthy by removing disease carrying vermin from our environment.

Or... You could say that I'm just a nut job that loves critters too much.

Just to add some clarification to what's been said (and if I say something wrong, I know HD Wildlife will quickly jump in here):

Almost all of the bats in the United States consume insects; however, each species specializes in the insects it prefers or is capable of feeding on. The majority of US bats do not eat mosquitoes and it is estimated that mosquitoes represent less than 2% of any bats diet that will feed on them. There are around 175 different species of mosquitoes in the US, of which only a few actually feed on people. So just because a bat eats a mosquito it doesn't mean that it ate one that will feed on people.

The statement that an individual bat will eat 450 - 1200 mosquitoes an hour is incorrect. The more correct statement is that an individual bat CAN eat 450 - 1200 mosquito SIZED insects an hour.These numbers were derived by catching bats emerging from their roost, weighing them and then capturing and weighing them again as they returned. It also bears mentioning that bats do not feed continuously throughout the entire time they are gone from the roost. Rather, they will feed two or three times throughout the night and may return to the roost to rest or feed pups or rest at other locations away from the roost site.

Bats have preferred feeding sites that average from 1/4 mile to 10+ miles from the roost site. While many are opportunistic feeders, not as much feeding occurs at the roost location as elsewhere so it is hard to state what their true feeding impact is at the roost site.

Bats are thermodynamic by nature. That means that even if a bat house is installed, if it does not give the proper thermal conditions needed for bats to survive, they won't use it and it just becomes a stinging insect nest location. The reason multi-chambered structures are preferred is that they provide a wider range of conditions than a single chamber unit and thus have a greater chance of success.

The most effective technique to have bats occupy a bat house is to install it next to the existing entrance/exit point and give the bats time to adjust to it (usually,a one year period is recommended) before performing the exclusion job. A question that each business needs to consider with this approach is what liability they are creating by doing so.

Professionally, I refuse to install a bat house on any structure I've been hired to perform exclusion services because:

1) while I've stopped the bats from entering the house, I've not removed potential conflicts with guano or the bats themselves as they are still present and may enter the home through open doors, windows, chimneys or other areas building codes prohibit an effective barrier be installed,
2) most homeowners will not maintain the work I performed and once an opening appears the chances of the bats entering the structure again increase,
3) as the "expert" I am putting myself and company at more risk should a "bite" occur as I should possess the knowledge that this type of installation may result in a health issue conflict,
4) if the client wants a bat house, there are other areas away from the structure where it can be installed that does not create the same liabilities.

Snakes are capable of transmitting salmonella to people.

Of all the bat houses I've seen and checked, only about 6 had bats in them. Every one of those 6 was attached to the house that also had bats. I don't know if the overflow went from house to bat house, or bat house to house, but I want to discourage bats from being on the structure altogether. I removed and relocated all of those bat houses. I never checked to see if they were later abandoned, but they weren't on the house anymore. Why would anyone want to encourage the target animal to live on the house instead of inside it. Would you do it with squirrels or coons? Besides, there are usually plenty of other structures in the neighborhood that the bats may move into, which may bring more work your way in the future. I have no problem chasing them from one home to another, but I rarely get next door neighbors for the same problem. It has happened though.

I used to sell and install as an add-on ...but stopped a long time ago after years of monitoring them and only seeing 1 bat in one several years ago...

Joe pretty much summed up bat houses in one sentence!

Muddawg, Appreciate your work in trying to create some new bat houses and how you are going about it!

Everyone has a different take on this issue and it should be separated into a couple of categories.

1) Adding bat boxes to someones property or home as a bat excluder after an exclusion

2) Adding bat boxes for someone on their property when no exclusion was needed or done

***

I don't disagree with those who stated they won't or don't put them up due to the fact they just excluded bats from a home
especially when an owner suggests a home mount (chimney, siding, exterior mount).

I've had people ask me to replace their old box that was house mounted following an exclusion and I've done so and they've been
occupied in the few cases this has occurred in.

In terms of all the rest of this topic when it comes to occupancy bats are as Eric (WCT) mentioned very thermally driven as a species.

Too often I have homeowners who already (as I'm sure some of you have as well) put up bat boxes as their friend or neighbor said,
"just put up some bat boxes and those bats will leave your attic just like that."

Though we find bats in nearly all types of crazy scenarios in terms of roosts, males and non reproducing females have less of a picky
range of temps they will use while maternity colonies have the most intense need for a more stable range of temps in order to properly
rear pups.

We've studied this in the field in local bridges throughout entire seasons as well as having watched this anecdotally in a variety of homes
and outbuildings while awaiting exclusion time.

Now, if we look at stability and think about all the boxes that haven't gotten used and that remained just a fixture out there in the yard, seeming
worthless, we also need to balance out the idea that they "don't work" with the fact that they do actually work widely and around the world for
insectivorous bats like we have here in our country.

Do they work every time? No not on your life.

Why?

A ridiculous amount of reasons including but not limited to:

1) Already have a better place to roost they know exists and have affinity for.

2) Not enough solar input during the day to warm the box to temps they desire.

3) Too much solar input during the day taking the box above the range they desire.

4) Too little stability provided by the simple wooden box to keep nighttime temps from dropping below desired levels.

5) Risk of predation too high (hawks, falcons, raccoon, snake, etc..)

6) Not enough thermal variation (as Eric mentioned multi chambered boxes offer bats the ability to move to a section not facing the sun
or toward it if need be).

The list goes on likely including simply "I don't care for this bat box."

However, many many tens of thousands of bat boxes are up and working. I know folks across the country who have massive colonies of big browns,
used to have massive colonies of little browns (in WNS areas) and in other regions Mexican free-tailed bats and a variety of others. Many folks I know
expand their bat box structures every couple of years to add to the growing colony space and they become occupied.

Despite this many boxes will fail for any of the above reasons or others that also play a role. If you as an animal in this case bats, already have a location
you use or an alternate (if excluded from the primary) than you likely aren't choosing the small cedar or plywood box on the pole out in the yard fully exposed.

Most folks agree if it hasn't been used in 2 years move it to another location or exposure in the yard, others I know suggest always getting the box up prior to young
being volant (flying) as they have witnessed young bats being more exploratory of these new structures than older bats might.

No matter what your view is or what you do or don't do as a company, this is an interesting thread it shows that some have done this in the past, others are doing it now
and ultimately as any topic there are differences of opinion on why or why not.

From a pure bat conservation standpoint I like bat boxes, they create conversation, folks think of them like they do bird boxes (which many homeowners have in one form
or another), they get people talking about bats in a positive light.

Yes indeed the mosquito is the most discussed aspect in most public discussions and though smaller species of bats do consume mosquitos in massive numbers, the main
reason this is so up in front on these conversations is because it is a direct human benefit that people can see and therefore conservation wise, no bat conservationist worth
their salt wouldn't want to use this aspect of bats as a promotional tool to increase public awareness and support.

Frankly out here when folks ask me (clients or otherwise) what do they eat, just mosquitos, I run down the list of species we have and what they are known to consume and how
it varies based on how the species evolved and that they are all different though they can and do overlap on a number of prey sources. I have 27 species of bat in my state though
I rarely see more than 6-8.

I love to tell folks that the pallid bats hanging on their porch are primarily gleaning bats who kill scorpions and centipedes (long suckers not the tiny guys I had where I grew up). Once
you tell them that, most folks instantly have some move toward how they are a good thing, because lets face it as humans if it doesn't help us we often don't care. Just the nature of the
game, whether you are talking presidential election or conservation of a species.

So, to summarize, bat boxes work, they don't always work and can certainly become a wooden box on a pole without any value or merit. People have proven artificial roost and nesting structures for a variety of species work well but that doesn't mean they are always occupied as there are other sources of roosts out there for any of these species and our offering may not fit their needs in a variety of ways.

I have had boxes occupied within 30 days of putting them, in these cases the location was on point, the microclimate was a solid mimic for the existing roost, but yes I've got some on posts with no value added other than talking about the fact that no bats took to it...



So, "if you build it", they might come....

Justin

p.s. Muddawg, Eric's salmonella response for snakes popped into my head as well, but if you aren't touching the snakes and they aren't crawling across your kitchen counter I'm assuming you meant just simply being under a house, around the exterior etc... I as well wouldn't consider "non hots" a big human health worry unless you had a few hundred garter snakes in your well or something of the sort... (mentally we could argue any snake might be a physical threat as so many folks are so insanely afraid of them....)

great post hd wildlife.
i did put up two bat boxes last week at a customers house that asked for them. i bought some bat call lure and put in them. main thing now is location. customer had two old barns on the property. one was close to the house so i put the box on the sunny side of the barn up high. the other one had alot of growth around the barn. sunny side also on placement. i have high hopes for the barn close to the house and not so much for the other one.
in yalls experince would you try and keep the bat house close or farther away?

sorry all the questions but i have never delt with the boxes before now. just getting more people asking for them.