Bat House Forum

[Terry Lobdell]

Here is a narrow slanted baffle house I wanted to try as a design to fit where there is limited mounting space. The baffles are only 6" wide so it is also a good way to make use of cut off ends of boards. Bats can move around internally from baffle to baffle. It has 5 square feet of roosting space........a suprisingly large amount given the small amount of material used to build it. As a comparison, the recent post of my cousin's bat house producing an exit count of 74 little browns has only 3 square feet of roosting space. 

[Terry Lobdell]

The baffles face east so it should warm up fast in the morning. Being mounted on the corner, it also gets a lot of southern exposure. The roof is a 2X8 to help retain night time temps.

 

[kerbat]

Terry,  interesting the slanted bat house. How about a side cross section with some dimensions on it ?  Does the guano fall out OK or tend to stick because of the slope? Picture shows a smorgasboard (sp? injunears never could spell) of bat houses. How do you handle the guano at the ground level?

Bernie Kerr , south Florida, 100 plus brazilian free tails in rocket, considering another utility pole with 2 crossbars for multiple bat house mounting

[Terry Lobdell]

Bernie, the next one I build I'll take a cross section picture before it is finished. Actually the larger slanted baffle house below it has more detailed pics I took during construction.

As for the guano, My little brown maternity never uses boxes mounted on my house. The most usage comes from my big brown maternity (15-16 mothers) With pups the highest exit count was 32 in 2006. I do get quite a bit of guano splatter underneath the house they use the most. bachelors leave very little guano.

If you look to the right in the 2nd picture of this post, you will see the box I'm describing. It is right up in the peak covered with black aluminum. I have a wooden strip under it to deflect urine and guano away from my house. It works pretty well. I did take some pics of the guano pile on the wooden strip a couple days ago. I will post them soon.

My home is a ways of the road and hidden by trees so I don't worry about the appearance.......the bat house experimentation is more important. I am gradually getting a lot of people sold on the idea of mounting bat houses. I find, the more I mount, the more I learn........At last count I have 36 mounted on and around my home and those mounted at other locations add up to around 60 bat houses total.

[kerbat]

Terry , you must be the  champ in house numbers for an individual. If I am ever in your neighbor hood would love to have a tour and pick your brain. It might not serve us totally since we deal with different bats and weather. My hope is to keep bats year round. Last year was my first occupancy year and this year has been better except for the total departure when I was gone for 3 weeks. Suspect owls chased them off but do not know for sure. Been running over a 100 in the rocket since they we and they returned.

Bernie

[Terry Lobdell]

Bernie, you would certainly be welcome to take a tour.......I live about 40 miles south of Erie Pa. I hope to post more pics of my bat houses on here..........As far as the most bat houses mounted, that has to be Kent Borcherding with 12,000 bats in over 100 bat houses. And we are fortunate enough to have him share his knowledge with us on here.......

As for owls, I think that may be part of my problem at another location where I've almost no occupancy in spite of excellent habitat.............It does have a lot of big hollow trees in the area..........lots of cavities perfect for owls and great hunting areas for them too.

I forgot to answer your question about the guano sticking to the slanted baffles.........yes it does stick........this design may not be practical for heavy usage by maternities...........

I'm thinking this design may appeal to big browns when it gets very hot. It may also be a good starter bat house in order to initially attract bats. The open baffle front allows for greater exit heighth when they leave.

 I've been pondering a design that could be mounted on the side of a garden shed, yet adapted in some way to provide a higher exit point for the bats. I hope to build such a box within the next year. Being able to mount a large maternity box standing on or near ground level would be so much easier and safer than wrestling with a 40 pound box 15 feet in the air.

[Terry Lobdell]

I've got part of my big brown maternity using this narrow slanted baffle box. I'm really happy because I've only had it up about a month. I really didn't expect to get much usage until later in the summer during a really hot humid spell. I've had lots of guano underneath the last couple days and last night when I got home from work I shined a light up.......the middle 3 crevices had 3 mothers and at least 4 pups roosting. Some other mothers may have been out flying.......I'm going to check at dusk tonight because I think there may be 6 or 8 mothers using it.

My big brown maternity has been coming and going more than ever this year. They've now used 7 different boxes - 6 mounted on my home and one on a pole. In addition, they've completely left my premises a few times too. Where they go, I have no idea........

[LarryH]

Terry - I've seen more movement of my bats this year than ever before, and I think it is because of the strange weather we've had.  They arrived early this Spring, because of the unusually warm Spring weather, and there were more than usual.  But, then in May we had an unusually cold spell with rain every night -- it was down in the 30's at night and only in the high 40's or low 50's at night -- and the bats disappeared.  They were gone for about 3 weeks, and I was wondering if we were going to have any this summer.  But, by late May or early June, they were back in full force, in higher numbers than ever.  Then, after a couple weeks most of them left again, and the only bats I found were a few with babies in the nursery house.

Suddenly, as fast as they left, they were all back.  All 3 houses now have bats in them, and one of the houses is full of babies.  The Big Browns seem to more about more than the Little Browns do, though.

 

[Terry Lobdell]

Larry, that is very interesting.......I am quite a ways from you, (NW PA) but movement patterns of our bats sound identical. You are probably at a lower latitude. And I have definitely observed that big browns move around more than little browns......

How many mothers in you big brown maternity colony?

[Terry Lobdell]

I now have new born big brown pups in this narrow slanted baffle house! I'm guessing there are 6-8 mothers. I shined a light up tonight and saw these small pink things and they did not all exit at dusk. I usually don't disturb them with light, but I wanted to pinpoint closer when pups are being born.

[Erik]

Congratulations Terry! Is that the normal number of big browns in your houses?

[Terry Lobdell]

Erik, I have around 15, maybe as many as 18 big brown mothers that roost in boxes on and around my home. The last 2 or 3 years they have been splitting up and roosting in 2 or 3 groups. This box appears to have 6 or 8 mothers right now. I'm not sure where the other ones went as I can find no fresh guano under my other boxes. It is normal for them to disappear for a week or sometimes even 2 weeks but they always come back. We continue to have very cool nights here so far this year so I'm wondering if they might be in someone's attic somewhere to take advantage of higher night time temperatures....

[Joe Spencer]

That really is great news Terry. I wonder if we had side by side comparisons of slanted baffle houses vs standard and if bats would show a preference. Do you have any little browns in slanted houses? I remember reading about hibernating big browns frequently choosing areas which were flat or slightly slanted as opposed to straight down so I was hoping to eventually see a potential summer roosting behavior or preference for slants. I will look forward to more of your posts on this.

[Terry Lobdell]

Joe, I did have 2 little browns using the wider slanted baffle box last year. I'm guessing the design does not maintain high enough temps for little browns. Unfortunately I had a downed big brown pup underneath last night............I have never had that happen here at home before. The only other downed pups I've had here were juveniles which I was able to place back up in the box. I guess this was just a fluke but it was sad to find a dead pup under a box design that I least expected to have fallen pups.......