Bat House Forum

[IowaNate]

  The recent icestorm that went through the Midwest in December took down some limbs in my front yard. I am planning on mounting a rocket style house in the new open area. One more large limb has to come down and I will do this in the next month. The green lines indicate where I will take down the remaining limbs. This will leave a very large open area on the Southeast corner of my property. I dislike this tree and sometimes want to cut the whole thing down, but it is home to doves and squirrels in the spring, and I can't find it in myself to displace my yard's other furry and feathered inhabitants. 

  My current bat houses are mounted on the North and South sides of my home. The yellow house to the South is where numerous big browns have overwintered in the last five years. As most of you know, there is a 20 foot wide trout stream exactly 1/4 mile to the West of my home. I have only managed to attract about 10 big browns to my bat houses even though I regularly see numerous little browns flying in the summer over my yard (up to twenty in 30 minutes time).

  The red dot indicates where I will place the rocket house, and it will be 15 feet from the nearest limbs, and about 20 feet from the neighbor's home and my home. There are no trees to the South and East of this location, so it will receive good sunlight throughout the morning. My goal is to attract at least a few little browns to my yard. I plan on making this a three chamber rocket house with only 3/4 inch spacing. My fiance isn't very enthusiastic about a bat house in the front yard, but then again she knows my passion for bats and will just give a "sigh" and say "go ahead" (she loves bats, but thinks the bat house might be an eyesore).

  This will be my first rocket, so any suggestions or advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Terry Lobdell]

Nate, that looks like a good spot for a bat house to me. The fact that it will be visible to other people helps to educate them about bats and bat houses!

[IowaNate]

  

 Due to the uncertainty that I will be able to attract little browns to my rocket house given that I am 1/4 mile from a trout stream, I am going with a two chamber that is 30 inches tall overall (instead of 45 inches as specified in the BHBH) to keep the cost and weight down and it will be mounted on a 4X4 post. I am going to try to mount the bottom of this house 18 feet up. If anything, the new rocket will provide an extra roosting option for my current colony of 9 big browns.

  I am starting on the house next week and will set the post when the ground thaws. I will be undertaking the task of cutting hundreds of saw kerfs in the partitions for footholds instead of using petscreening which I use for my nursery style houses. A flat roof covered with shingles would be the easiest, but a peaked roof making a small attic might help with temperature fluctuations.

  It seems strange to me that even though I have a 90% occupancy rate for all the houses that I have hung, that I have so many questions about investing in and putting up a rocket house. Given what I have read in the Bat House Builder's Handbook and my personal experience, I should have a 50% chance of attracting little browns to my front yard, and probably a 90% chance of having it occupied by a few of my current big browns.

[kent borcherding]

Nate ,

Slanting the top of post for a rocket box is important in the number of bats using the box.

A lot of the bats will roost at the top .

Shingling the roof also helps , some of the houses I have use black rubber pond liner instead of shingles , Seems to work well.

I cut the top at a 55 or 60 degree angle , you gain roosting surface this way , usually like to use at least a 4" x 4" or larger wood.

Also when cutting the notches in the side of post cut them 55 - 60 degree angles.

Also I think it helps to cut the side notches on several different sides of the post.

Dan Dourson who designed the rocket box and John McGregor who helped him with it and are good people , I spent some time with them late in the summer in the Daniel Boone National forest in Kentucky , checked the bat houses in the timber and netted some bats.

[Joe Spencer]

To incorporate Ken's suggestion into the design which was in the original rocket bat house post which Ken elaborated on,  just let the point of the angle on top of the post where it meets the roof be the STOP (SEE BELOW) when slipping over the first section.  Remember, that this design means the post itself must contain the chamber spacers 3/4" etc. to utilize the angled post as roosting space.  It is better to use non-PT lumber for the post however, since arsenic was eliminated from PT lumber,  I believe an exposed  PT post as roosting space at the core shouldn't pose a health hazard to the bats.  Be sure to score the post since they're usually smooth to give bats a better foothold.  A flat inner roof would be easiest and less time consuming when making a multiple chambered rocket with the exception of course of the final/outer roof being angled.  When I first built this design I used my chainsaw to cut the angles.  Maybe someone else has some suggestions on doing this if one lacks a chainsaw.  This angled post does increase the chances of even the Big Browns using it due to its larger horizontal angled chamber spacing but it also increases the chances of paper wasps as well if you angle it too deep.  Keep to Ken's angle recommendations and  that which you see below and you should be in good shape!

[IowaNate]

 For ease of building I will be making the rocket similar to the newer Bat House Builder's Handbook design. Although I like the notched post original design, I want to be able to see the bats in the house and think that the notched post might keep some bats from my view. I think I will be using pvc pipe spacers as Terry suggested in another post so the guano has a better chance of falling off the rounded surface.

  I am also curious as to how many others have bat houses occupied by little browns that are between 1/4 and 1/3 mile from the nearest water source. Given my observations and other data, little browns are VERY dependant on being close to water. The furthest bat house from open water occupied by little browns that I have seen was 300 yards from a one acre pond.

[IowaNate]

  This link provides a short video tour of my yard and the current and future bat house placement.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5646787994189041399

[Joe Spencer]

Thanks for the video Nate.  Will you be replacing either of your houses in the video link above with the new hybrid baffle/shutter style design below that you recently posted?

[IowaNate]

 Yes Joe, both the North and South side of my house will be getting the new slanted baffle combo bat house. I hope to have four total, one on each side of my second story windows, but for the time being there will be just one on each side of the house. I have all the wood cut for the second house, but have yet to assemble it. I plan a residing my house soon in a tan color and have brown shingles on the roof which are the same color as my bat houses, so the bat houses will actually be incorporated into an asthetically appealing view of my whole house. I am not sure that I will be able to attract more than the 9 big browns that have occupied my houses, but with the slightly larger design and the two different roosting options in one house, I think I have a pretty good chance of attracting more (even if they are just bachelors like the current residents) I must be doing something right to attract the bachelors since they reside in the houses from April through December and only have left for a week at a time during those months in the past five years.

[Terry Lobdell]

Nice job on the video Nate! I hope to get some video this summer possibly doing an exit count on some of my bat houses.....