Bat House Forum

[LandscaperMiller]

I just finished putting up my first bat house last week. I used this triple chamber plan from floridabats.org http://www.floridabats.org/ImagesBHs/Bat_House_Plans.pdf . I also referenced the caulking and painting instructions from the batcon.org single chamber plan. I used a 16ft 4"x4" wooden post to mount. It's about 2 ft in the ground, so the bottom of the house is about 12ft from the ground.

It's a semi-shady yard, but it gets about 2 hours of sun in the morning and about 3 hours of sun in the afternoon, plus I painted it black. I see at least two bats on a nightly basis, though I'm sure they're settled into their current roost for this year.

I live about a mile from the Tennessee river and Chickamauga lake. It's a little more than the 1/4 mile recommended for maternity colonies, but there are also a few small ponds nearby. I will say there is a vast network of large caves in the Chattanooga area, mainly in Raccoon Mtn, including the Nickajack Cave which is home to about 100,000 grey bats, so I hope this will contribute to maintaining the local bats populations.

This is my first experience with trying to attract bats, and I hope it works out.

The picture is facing the direction of the sunrise.

[Joe Spencer]

Great! Good luck with it and maybe you will attract them.

[Markcuda]

Welcome
The wife and I have been to your town on our Harley Ultra
I hope you get bats