BATS!

[chickenfeathers]

We have many bats that come out at evening twilight time.

They are s-o-o- cool to watch.

Anyone else have them?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bats can see very well, probably better than we do at dusk, but even their eyesight needs some light and they would be unable to find their insect prey in the dark. Bats have solved this problem and can find their way about at night and locate their food by using a sophisticated high frequency echolocation system. Our hearing ranges from approximately 20Hz (cycles per second) to 15 to 20 kHz (1000Hz) depending on our age, but bat calls are generally well above this. By emitting a series of often quite loud ultrasounds that generally sweep from a high to low frequency or vary around a frequency, bats can distinguish objects and their prey and therefore avoid the object or catch the insect.

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u16/gregg1971/echoloc.gif

 

[justusnak]

We have bats here, little brown ones. I love watching them in the evenings. A few weeks ago, I had a bat get stuck in the sticky yellow fly strip thingy in the hen house. I was able to save it....havent had one get in there since! Whew! What a mess that was!

 

[chickenfeathers]

Quote:

Now that could be a problem for me too ...lots of those sticky fly paper thingys in our coop too.

How did you unstick him/her??

 

[Hotwings]

Glad to see you are bat lovers. So many people try to kill them. In all racoons carry more rabies than bats. Bats are vital in keeping the insect population under control.

 

[Chirpy]

We've been thinking of putting up bat houses to encourage them to come around here to help with mosquitos.

Anyone else have bat houses? Did you make them, if so how? How far away from the chicken house would put bat houses? Or, would you keep them close?

 

[justusnak]

It was awfull.....seeing that little bat in the sticky paper. I got a pair of THICK gloves...and carefully peeled it off. It was hard trying to make sure the wing leather was not torn. It took me quite some time, letting the bat rest in between. A little warm water....to soften the glue....then I placed the bat on top of a ladder, so the chickens could not get to it. I watched it clean itself from the glue...and later it was gone. Guess it flew off. Havent seen one in the coop since.

 

[rooster-red]

We have had 3 bat houses on our land for about 4 years now.

We sometimes watch them hunting insects drawn by the security light. I've had one catch a bug about a foot over my head, didn't get to see it, just heard it.

 

[SandraChick]

just google bat box or bat house and you'll get tons of places where you can buy or build your own. Lots' of good info too.

Sandra

 

[Bubba]

I would place the bat box away from your birds. They will take out a bat in midflight if they are hungry....

Also the bat poop is very HOT (not physically) like chicken poop. You need to compost it before adding it to plants or you will burn them.

You can make alot of things into bat boxes or make bat boxes alot of ways. I would recommend using a search engine and finding a design you like. I doubt you want to build a concrete cave for them

Bubba

PS Bats eat more insects then any other mammal (Pretty sure its animal to)

 

[eggzettera]

Pretty sure they need to be at least 10 feet off the ground so they have enough "clearance" to take off and I have heard that if you do a "dry soak" with the house in bat gauno they will locate it quicker. You should be able to find guano at the Landscaping centers in the fertilizer section.