Bat House Forum

[midwestmeg]

I was so tickled to find this community! My husband and I have had bats in our attic for years. We live in an old farmhouse. Over the winter, we started a big addition and thought we sealed off the bats while they were away for the winter. Hahaha- we had no idea how persistent bats are.

Now we are in the process of relocating them. We have a place for them in the granery and our barn. The bats are currently using one-way cleanouts and we've been opening up a corner of the soffit every few days out to let more out.

We've counted over 300 bats so far!

The amount of guano up there really is a health hazard (we used to live in MN only in the winter and return to AK in the summer) but now we are here year round and have kids.

All that said, we believe in bats and want to give them time to move on, without hurting them.

My questions are- how long does it take established colonies to move on? How long do bats live? How many in a colony? I'm used to removing the occasional bat from the house, but now I am fascinated with how they live. They are so amazing!

Thanks in advance, Megan

[Joe Spencer]

Hi Megan! I have to go quickly but if you have a digital camera and can take a picture of the guano we can confirm whether you have little browns or big brown bats. Based on the number (300) the odds are in favor of the former. Place a pencil or an old ruler on top of or next to the guano and take the photo. Upload the photo to an image host as shown in our "How do I?" section so we can confirm the species and members will advise from there.

Take care,

Joe...

[Terry Lobdell]

Hi Megan! It can be a slow process to exlude them from your house. If you browse through the posts on this site you should see many good suggestions and ideas. That fact that you have that many means they really like that location and most likely won't move on. If you can mount some bat boxes close by that is probably your best solution. Also, if you ever put a new roof on your house, white shingles make attic temperatures too cool to attract little brown bats. I have never seen a little brown bat maternity colony in an attic of a house with white shingles.