Bat House Forum

[Gary Springer]

Hello all!!

Do any of you still have bats in your bat houses

If you will recall, this past summer I suggested that most bathouse designs do not provide enough ventilation to prevent excessive heat accumulation on hot summer days and that this often causes bats to vacate in the summer when maternity houses are most needed.

I return to this point which I believe is very important.

In the past, when I informed others of the quantitiy of ventilation I provided on my bat houses, I had often been told that they need the heat for maternity colonies.

My bathouses that provide double and triple the ventilation provided in most other bat houses, are not painted, have no caulking of the seams, and have oversized tin roofs and space between roof and structure to provide lower temperatures have been used for maternity purposes by bats every year for 7 years.

To throw in another factor that addresses ventilation and heat in bat houses, there is the matter of how soon into the autumn season bats vacate the bat house.

My better than average ventilated bat houses designed to keep the occupants cool are still occupied by bats as of today, November 15, 2010, although we've had three hard frosts. I'm wondering how many others have bats still roosting in bat houses designed with the recommended ventilation and caulked boards.

Certainly the species of bat and the georgraphical location are important factors.

That said, I live about 100 mile south of Asheville North Carolina. I define my location using Asheville because it is a town well known that is not in Georgia. When I tell people I live in Georgia they think, well, you live in the deep south. The truth of the matter is that the part of Georgia in which I live is further north than almost the entire state of Sourh Carolina, even further north than parts of North Carolina, and, mountains also affect the weather in our location, Carnesnille. GA

As far as the species, I believe there are little browns, big browns and evening bats but I can not determine which remain.

These bats are in a dormant state. There is no fresh dropping under the bat houses.

Looking forward to finding out how many of you still have bats in your caulked bat houses with average recommended ventilation.

Thank you,

Gary Springer

[cloudman75]

Gary,
I have about 50 bats left here in Lithia Springs. I posted a photo tonight earlier of some freetails in a house that has no ventilation painted dark bue on top and lighter blue on the lower section. I also have around 25 in my three chamber house with the woodpecker hole that I had previously posted.
If you care to see three houses I recently built, check out bat house photos- Another new bat House Wed Oct 6 post, and alsoSummer Bat House for the Southeast completed. The summer house has far more ventilation than normal. IT also have no calking and in addition has open vent cracks under the roof. If one stands in front it is possible to see entirely through the back. In addition to cracks in the front all the way across it has cracks across the back. This is my design for a summer house. The third house I built has two chambers calked at the top and an attic . One chamber is ventilated and is designed in my mind to attract pregnant females in mid March and April while the weather is relatively cool here. I have no doubts that it will get too hot about mid july.
To summarize, I have bats now on Nov. 15 in a normal ventilated house with the addition of a wood pecker hole. About 25 little browns are using this house. They are not very active at dusk. I know about how many are there and what kind as I take their photos almost nightly. They appear to be in topor
as I have posted previously. The other bats are freetails and they are active and come and go in numbers. Tonight I took their photo and counted about 25 with a couple of browns with them. They are in the unventilated winter house I built as an experiment.
In addition, I agree with most of what you said from my own experience, And I don't doubt the other which I have no experience.

Frank