bats

I also have bats. I made a small bat roost box and erected it in my backyard. I don't have a huge colony, but I have a few to entertain me during the summer. One of them is hibernating in my basement right now.

Awesome, I love bats. Just make sure they don't make a home in your basement, they can cause a huge mess and federal law states that you cant even legally touch them.

No worries. I have an inoperable chimney that I leave the ash door and another hole in it open for their entry/exit.

Wow! Sooo cool! We have actually been talking about hanging a bat box. They are quite expenses and hard to locate.

My husband said if I get him the info, he will hang one.

I tried last year, but got totally sidetrack with the martins and then forgot about it. I know we have bats in the area though. We see them flying around from time to time.

I built one a few years back out of scrap wood. The dimensions were right but I never hung it.

Get on the Bat Conservation International website --www.batcon.org, I think-- they should have all the info you need. My wife pointed out some bat boxes at our local Big R store recently, and not knowing any of the specs, asked me what I thought of them. One quick glance told me everything: they are too open, bats like their roosting boxes close --3/4" at least, no partitions, the back board had the only clinging grooves. Paper wasps are as bad getting into bat boxes as they are bird houses. These she showed me would have been a haven for wasps.

And, the boxes had cracks in them. Bats, like people, want a home that is weather-tight, these were not. I don't remember the price, but they were too expensive for how crappy they were built.

Thanks for that info. Last bat houses I saw in retail stores were around $29 or so, of course that was years ago. Either way that's way too much money for a product that doesnt work.

My day has been made 100% better! I was just in the basement grabbing the small box that I intended to make a hibernaculum (safe hibernating place) for the "bat" to hibernate in. I was looking in the crack on my little guest, checking to make sure he's safe and secure, and thought I noticed something.

I bent down for a better angle and realized, there are two bats in that crevice! I was elated. I began to check more nooks, I thought, "That's all." I don't know how I saw it, but I found another. Our house's foundation is limestone with mortar chinking. The third one wedged itself between the limestones. I'm ecstatic! Upon further inspection, the single bat seemed bigger and darker. I believe the two are little browns and the single is a big brown.

I'm definitely constructing a hibernaculum now. I want them as safe as possible while guests in my basement. I'm just going to staple nylon screen to an old doorjamb down there, then screw a screen-wrapped piece of plywood over that, leaving a 3/4" space between.

Not a bat, but BATS in my basement... woo hoo! hahahaahahahahaha

Awesome! You've got some new friends and alot less bugs all in one, can't beat that!

ain't it dangerous to have bats in your basement? don't they carry rabies?

No more so, Pink, than any other mammal. Besides, they have to contract it somewhere too. I don't handle them at all. If I find them, I merely peak at them, and marvel. And too, when I consider how many people kill bats when they accidentally get in their house, or would make an easy kill while they're sleeping, I consider these bats lucky that they're hibernating in MY basement. I provide every comfort I can to keep them healthy and safe.

dunno why I thought they were carriers, and yes they are lucky indeed, good to keep ur basement free from bugs.

Well, they won't keep the basement bug-free, they're just hibernating down there. When the time comes, they'll leave, probably up the chimney, and hopefully right into the outdoor bat roost for the summer.

They should pop out about the time the bugs start getting ridiculous down there and they'll be hungry so even if they don't find your box I'm sure they will thin the bug herds a bit on their way.

Are you getting cicadas down there over the past couple years?

Oh yah, every year.

I got to see a big brown snatch one off a tree limb when I was stationed at Ft. Campbell on the TN/KY line. That was a national geographicmoment for sure.

Bats are cool. When we were kids we would throw a basketball into the air and watch them zoom towards it then fly around it at the last minute. We had a colony living in an old dead tree in the woods behind our house and they would always come out and eat up the bugs for us to watch.