Bat House Forum

[Armyman04200]

Hello All,

I am new to bat house building and was wanting to place 2 smaller multi chamber houses on 1 4x4x16 wooden pole, will this work? Another thing, I have been researching bat houses and it seems that the larger houses have the most success, should I reconsider building smaller houses and go for a Medium to larger bat box? I live in southern Ohio and have a lot of little browns around my house, with white nose syndrom and stuff, I just want to give them a good place to go for the summer nights next year. If anyone has any good proven bat house plans, I would appreciate it, thanks a lot

[cloudman75]

Welcome Armyman,
A 4x4 pole would support two or more bat houses with no problem if installed about 3 ft in the ground or more..
Here is a plan I know is a good design for Little Browns and others. It is from your next door neighbor PA.

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/Pla ... oxplan.pdf.

Florida Plan http://www.floridabats.org/ImagesBHs/Ba ... _Plans.pdf

I'll look for the Florida plan also and modify this post to add it if I can locate it. A good choice for Little Browns is a 3 chamber about 24 inches high and 14 inches wide. Larger would be better but they really like that size here at my place.

Frank

[flyin-lowe]

Here are few stats I cut and pasted from Batcon.s web site. Among other things they mention that a bat house of at least 24x24 has a lot higher success rates. Here is some more info from a study they did at various housing sites.
The odds of attracting bats are very good for well-designed, well-built bat houses mounted according to recommendations
developed by the Bat House Project during 12 years of bat house research by BCI and its volunteer
Research Associates across the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Here are a few of our latest results:
•Bats inhabited an average of 60 percent of all reported bat houses (both good and bad houses and installations) in
BCI's 1999 to 2001 annual surveys.
•Occupancy in rural areas was 61 percent, compared to 50 percent for urban and suburban areas.
•90 percent of occupied bat houses were used within two years (with 50 percent occupancy in the first year). The
rest needed three to five years for bats to move in.
•Tall designs like the multi-chamber (nursery) and rocket-style houses performed best in our surveys. For example,
80 percent of 123 houses with chambers at least 25 inches tall were occupied in 2000.

The only issue I see with a 16 foot pole is that once you put it 3 feet or more into the ground you are at about the low limit for the height recommendations. The higher the bottom of the house from the ground the better. Even with a 16 foot post three foot in the ground the top of your pole with be 13 foot high. Subtract the height of your house from that and now you are only 10-12 feet off of the ground depending on the housing design. I am not saying they won't use a house that low but a little higher would be better. I know my local Lowes store can order a 21 foot 4x4, not sure how much more they cost but it would be worth checking into.

[Armyman04200]

Thanks Frank, That first link is the bat house is the one I was planning on building, I know it says "small" but a few of those houses that hold 80 bats will make me more than happy, but I could perhaps modify the plans and make a slightly larger 3 chamber house. I live in the country near a state forest, with a small stream that has water in it almost the entire year with a quite large open field in my back yard. Another question I had is there is a large hill that part of it was cleared of trees, would it be okay to place my houses on the face of that hill, not at the top but at the face so that my house is facing east and the morning sun will hit is directly? I may try to Place 2 4x4 posts about 8 ft apart with supporting braces and putting Quikcrete in the holes for extra support, Are there any other ideas for support? My only concern is wind at this point. I am trying to get my University involved in building bathouses, I am going to check with the environmental club as well as Science chairs and my Mammalogy professor to see about building as many as 100 houses throughout my county for next year.

Thanks a lot for those stats flyin-lowe, made me consider making a slightly larger bathouse with the same plans. . .

[Armyman04200]

I will take pictures and post them on this thread later today of the hill, I think it will work excellent and will give the bats a little extra elevation when they leave the houses.

[Terry Lobdell]

That is a good idea to put up several bat houses.......kind of a "shotgun" approach.

I know that sites where I have multiple bat houses mounted, they definitely get the attention of the bats........Bats love lots of different roosting options and the pups when they have learned how to fly in July and August are very curious and will explore every bat house they come across..........

I think quickcrete is unecessary........I have good luck setting my poles with just some 2-B stone filled in the hole.......then if you ever want to take the pole out you can do it........with concrete it's there permanently...........