Bat House Forum

[cloudman75]

I checked tonight with a light and the 5 chamber bat house had only pups. There are a lot of them but no way I could count them. I can say that there are many. I was afraid to try a photo as camera flash might make one or more fall from fright.
I'll wait until they are older to try for that. The freetails are still roosting with the little browns and I suppose some are freetail pups, but don't know for sure. Also there were three small pups in another adjacent house over the weekend but they are gone now. I suppose the mothers moved them to stay with the others in the large 5 chamber.I think the adults are finished with having pups now as no adults were in the house tonight around 9:30. I have not been able to get an exit count on the adults as their
flight direction from the house is opposite from last year as I relocated the house. They make a 180 degree turn and are not framed against the horizon as in previous years. It is too dark now against the trees for a good count . I can say that there are a lot of them and guess-timate around 100 adults.

[Emersombiguns]

Hi Cloudman, this is Randy in La...I had only about 50 in my house tonight. I have found 2 newly born pups dead under house,and one live one, that I put back up yesterday, only to find it dead tonight underneath. My bats swarm out around and back up into the house, or fly off and come back either to do a "touch and go" to bottom of the house or go in. They are circling the house real low, and get close to me...I haven't gone out with light, but think I have bunch of pups in there also. Randy

[cloudman75]

Randy,
The touch and go behavior is not unusual here also at times. My bats come out now and head straight
for the lake a little ove a quarter of mile away. I have seen a bat or two come back and do what appears to say come on out friend as the buzz the house a few times like they may be going in.Some times they go in and back out again. These are little browns I am describing.
I have only seen two dead bats in several years at the bottom of my houses. An adult and pup were dead at the bottom one year when I got back after a week vacation. The mother must have died in labor,
and the newborn pup with her. I had a live pup on the ground which crawled up the lattice on my sundeck to a height of about 5 ft. The mother bat came down at dusk and picked up the pup. It looked unharmed and I did not try to assist. I think this speaks well of the footing available in my bat houses. I also think that if the houses are crowded, the pups get knocked out by other bats.

It is hot here now and the bats have moved out of my unvented house. There were no pups born in it this year. I plan to let it down and make some ventilation holes in it and paint it light blue to see what happens. My 5 chamber is large enough to hold a few hundred bats and they seem partial to it. I think the unvented house is not needed.

[Emersombiguns]

It is June 14. For last week or so my bats have all moved out. Not sure where or why they went. Took some shots with digital camera zoom'd in and flash. Didn't see a thing in there. Will have to see when they come back. Have been in the 90's here. I did have my pups fly out and 2 kinda glided to other area's. Don't know how they fair'd...Some great shots of bats in your house. Randy Haughton,La

[Terry Lobdell]

On the subject of pups falling, a couple years ago I had a small box, only about 3 square feet of baffle area suddenly become occupied by 77 little brown bat mothers which means there was roughly 25 bats per sq foot of roosting area. I knew they would be overcrowded so I quickly mounted a larger box close by. After the pups were born I did lose 5 pups to falling before they started really using the new box.

Based on this experience, I came up with a conservative estimate of no more than 15 mothers per square foot of baffle surface to ensure they have enough room and no pups fall.

I suppose a box with very rough surfaces on both sides of the baffles might safely hold 20 mothers per sq foot, but its a terrible feeling to find pups dead on the ground. I rarely find downed pups under an uncrowded box.