Bat House Forum

[William Bagwell]

Before I get to the bleary eyed stuff I will first ask; Has any one here ever had a bat house made of eastern red (aromatic) cedar? And how many years did it take before first occupancy?

From Wikipedia and several other reputable sources such as, http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/anp ... k/Text.htm
"Plicatic acid is most concentrated in western red cedar (Thuja plicata), but is also found in significant quantities in eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) and Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica)."

Eastern red cedar or Juniperus virginiana is not only a different species, it is in separate genus from the Thuja and Cryptomeria cedars. (BTW none of these three genus are true cedars...) As of now I have found zero credible evidence of J. virginiana having *any* amount of plicatic acid. (Other than end user posts confusing the facts and spouting nonsense such as "Aromatic Red Cedar should NEVER be used for nestboxes due to the toxic harmful plicatic acid fumes they emit.")

People once stated that the moon was made of green cheese but that did not make it so. Both eastern and western red cedar have a 'cedar' aroma with eastern red cedar being *far* more aromatic. While both types are used for lining closets, only eastern is correctly called 'closet cedar'. Both types of cedar have numerous volatiles including one or more that
give cedar its 'smell'. Plicatic acid is not only *not* this cedar smell, it not even classed as a volatile. Several sources even specifically point out that plicatic acid is *not* a volatile.

In fairness, almost any thing will vaporize a bit if you get it hot enough. So, *if* plicatic acid acts as a volatile even slightly and or occasionally this would obviously be of more concern with shavings than solid wood due to the high surface area. However, I think dust and other true volatiles are the real concern with shavings. A moot point here since we do not use shavings with bat houses.

From, http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke ... niana.html

"Chemistry Oil from the leaves contains borneol, cadinene, d-limonene, and a-pinene
(Guenther, 1948-1952). Hager's Handbuch adds sabinene, g-terpinene,
elemoacetate, 3-carene, myrcene, 4-terpineol, citronellol, elemol,
eudesmols, estragole, safrole, methyleugenol, elemicine, traces of
thujene, cymene, and linalool (List and Horhammer, 1969–1979). The
cedarwood oil contains ca 80% cedrene, some cedrol and pseudocedrol, and
cedrenol. Juniperus virginiana contains the poisonous antitumor compound
called podophyllotoxin (Lewis and Elvin-Lewis, 1977)."

James A. Duke is very credible source and there is no mention of Plicatic acid in this long list. (Though admittedly he fails to list it in the page for Thuja occidentalis where other acids not present in J virginiana are in fact listed)

Plicatic acid is most certainly an allergen and saw dust containing it has caused allergy and asthma in lumber industry workers.

From,
http://www.botanical-dermatology-databa ... /CUPR.html
"The main symptoms in 1320 persons with reactions to western red cedar,
and the rate of occurrence were (Yasue 1973): asthma 3.6%; nasal
inflammation 5.6%; urticaria 3.1%; skin infection 3.0%; conjunctivitis
5.1%."

Eastern red cedar on the other hand can cause contact dermatitis and this has been known since the 1930's involving pencil factory workers. Yes *80* years ago...

To be continued obviously, but probably not for a week or two since I have
other stuff to do. Need to explore all the various volatiles one by one and try to determine if they are lighter or heavier than air. If you stop to think about this, heavy volatiles will be a potential concern with bird houses and only *light* ones with bat houses due to the open bottom design.

Now why do I suddenly have this mental picture of tiny bats breathing helium and talking in high squeaky voices? Wait, they do that anyway without the helium

William

[Teddy Dee]

Thank you William for clearing that up .
I read that about the plicatic acid in a
post on here the other day and became
quite concerned . Especially because I
just got a new 3 chamber bat house
that is made out of western red cedar.
In fact since I have not made the time
to put it up . I placed it over my air
conditioning vent to speed up the
process of diluting the aroma .

Anyway , I went to Lowes last night
and bought some 1x4's to make the
post to mount my bat box on . I hope
to have it up soon .

[Markcuda]

William, that is now clear as mud

[Terry Lobdell]

Good info there William.......I am wondering if given the fact that most bat boxes are located with much sun exposure if most natural aromas are quickly dissipated within a couple years?

Kent Borcherding used to write a lot about avoiding plastics for bat boxes (I believe he was considering a rubber garbage can as an outer shell) because of emissions/outgassing........seems like emissions would decrease with age........

I think with a properly ventilated bat box most emissions would tend travel outwards........

And given that bats are pretty sensitive creatures, if a certain wood species might cause them harm maybe they would be aware of this and avoid it?

[cloudman75]

William,
My first house was bought directly from OBC and it was not a red color like western cedar, although it was cedar. It could have been eastern cedar, I don't know. I put it up in March and a few weeks later it was used by little browns. They had pups that first year in June. I really don't know what cedar OBC uses for the sides, top and front. The back is plywood.
The OBC houses by Looker appear more red than mine did when new. I'll email Rob Miles and ask him what type cedar is used. From hours of reading some replies to Gary Springer's plicatic acid concerns last year most of the so called experts were of the opinion that cedar boards are ok materials for bird houses, bat houses, and included the martin house experts. In fact it was the prefered material. Gary is convinced others are wrong and he is entittled to his opinion. I myself think it is similar to the radon scare a few years back which people spent millions on then it just quietly went away. One hardly ever hears about radon any more. I would not use cedar wood chips for animals, but will build blue bird and bat houses from cedar boards when I can find them at a good price. I really like the rough cedar for baffles as it works fine for the bats . The other two cedar houses I built from fence boards are on their first year
in service and have one small bat each of un-identified species smaller than LBS. I installed them and let them age all winter. They were up about 4 months before the first bats arrived in 2011.

Frank

Update:
My OBC houe is northern white cedar My exit count 07/26/2011 was 66 little browns. This is their favorite house.