Bat House Forum

[BrackishBatter]

I built this house on my parents farm in rural western VA about 8 yrs ago.  The prior owner had put up a standard BCI house and left a builder's handbook and a few BCI mags behind.  This, and the many, many, many bats in the attic of the farmhouse inspired me.  I've always been a "critter guy".

It's on a telephone pole, to give you a sense of scale.  It's aobut 6" tall and 5" longish, and has about 16 chambers and a large attic.  Two large men have trouble lifting it, despite well placed handles on either end.  I'll try to find the hand drawn plans and some assemply pics (pre digital camera.  Who makes prints anymore?)

 
Many many mistakes in assembly and material selection.  I've since learned a lot about both bats and woodworking/carpentry.  But it produces exit counts in the 150-200 range with many left behind.  


 It's old and likely not long for the world,.  The replacemnt will be less bold in scale, but much better in every other way.  Probably make several smaller ones as well to scatter about on the out-buildings and telephone poles.

 

We've never seen them in any of the outbuildings, including the barn in the pic.  THey still make appearances in the farmhouse, though, despite our best eviction efforts.

[BrackishBatter]

I can't find the pics, but here are the "plans" 

 



 

 



 

So not quite as long/wide as I remembered.  5'4" x 4'. 

29" deep, a lot more than 16 chambers!!

 

[Erik]

Wow, that's a big bat house and beautiful too. I can understand that mounting it on the telephone pole was not that easy.

Putting more smaller bat houses up in the area is a good idea, not only to give the current colony more choice of roost, but also to provide roosts for the bachelor groups that are always hanging about near nursery roosts.

To replace this bat house I would try to maintain the current megascale of multiple chambers. They offer the best variaton of microclimates in one bat house.  When you mount 3 or 4 4-chambered bat houses on a pole and cover it with a single roof you create a 12-16 cm chambered bat house. And because you can mount the bat houses one at the time it is an easy job to do.

Good luck and if possible post some pictures of the bats inside the bat house!

Erik (The Netherlands)

[BrackishBatter]

I made it back to the farmhouse last month and took a few pics.

The bathouse had an exit count of about 125-150 each night, which is pretty cool I guess, but for its size and considering the number of bats stll in the cabin attic, its pretty ho hum. THis has been the typical count forr most of its existance.

More pics.



From the other direction, note hte pond in the background to the right of the pink rhododendrons















I still search for the elusive "perfect material" for my future bat houses baffles: durable (eternal/synthetic?), roughened, rigid, cheap, lightweight, 1/4" sheet.

[Dave Miller]

I use 1/4" pine wainscoting from Home Depot. My bat house uses seven 8' boards per house. As I recall, one package is about $25 and contains enough for two houses. It is rough on one side and smooth on the other so you have to roughen at least the smooth side. I went overboard and cut shallow kerfs in both sides - not too deep or you'll cut through.

Glue them together to make the size you need. One of my lessons learned is to only fasten them at the top (or not at all). Use guide blocks or slots to keep them in place. Since they are real wood they expand and contract, and will split/buckle at the tongue/groove if you fasten both the top & bottom. I should have known better. On the other hand, split boards make for a wide variety of crevice widths and cubbyholes for the bats.