Bat House Forum

[Quinta do Riacho]

Hello Everyone!

Quinta do Riacho is a riding centre on Madeira Island (Portugal) where there are some bat species (Plecotus austriacus and Plecotus auritus). However they seem to be endangered on our island. As we are installed on a large plot near the natural park on a area that bats exist we would like to help them.
We would like to install a Bat House. Of the many designs we saw the rocket bat house is the one that appealed more to us because of its looks but it seems it is not the most suitable.
With this in mind we would like some help!
What designs do you recommend? Does anyone have plans/blueprints for it?
We were also planning to use a old (10-15 year) ex-utility wood pole. As I guess the wood is treated with something will there be any problem?

As for the placing we have a water stream around 0.12 miles away, forest just some 75 feet away and there is plenty of sun during the day.
We are located on the mountains so the only bright artificial light that exists are the ones from our sand school that are turned on from time to time. I leave you a sketch of the planed spot to place the bat house (the measure are in feet).



We also leave you our web links, not as spam, but for curiousity and to the ones that want to keep up to date on our bat project!

Quinta do Riacho
Quinta do Riacho - Facebook
Quinta do Riacho - Twitter
Quinta do Riacho - YouTube

Thanks for the time!

[Terry Lobdell]

Welcome! A treated pole would be o.k. for the bottom, but up where the bats are roosting it should not have any chemical treatment..........

I am not knowledgeble of your bat species requirements over there, but I'm guessing 3/4" crevices may be good..........

If you browse through this site you will find lots of photos sketches etc. that should give you some good answers......

Your sketch looks good........it looks like you have good habitat!

[cloudman75]

Hello,
I have read information on your brown long eared bats, plecotus auritus. I would use two three chamber bat houses about 24 inches high and 14 inches wide
mounted back to back above ground level around 12 to 14 ft high if possible.
Mount them on the pole back to back facing east and west or north and south. If your temperature beginning in May is 20 degrees C and gets up to around 25 C in September, then I would paint the houses a dark color. Your bats are similar in size and weight to our little brown bats so a 3/4 inch wide spacing of the chambers would be fine.
Here is a plan to give you directions for building your own if that is the direction you wish to take. You can forget the roll roofing in my opinion and just paint the roof.

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/Pla ... oxplan.pdf

If you wish to buy bat houses ,then I would say to consider ones of this size and design as shown in the plan if available. The European houses Available would also work for you most likely like they have in England and other areas where these bats range and live. Please keep us posted and welcome to the forum and good luck with your bats.
I also agree with what Terry wrote.
Regards,

Frank

[Quinta do Riacho]

Thanks everyone!
As soons as we install the bat house I'll post some pics!

[dremmlin]

Does anyone know if there are bats in North Texas?

[Joe Spencer]

Does anyone know if there are bats in North Texas?

Yes, there are 32 species of bats in Texas most of which are insectivorous some of which are crevice roosters which will occupy bat houses.

[dremmlin]

If I build it will they come?

[Joe Spencer]

If I build it will they come?

Use our search box and enter: criteria

This will help.

[William Bagwell]

Leave it to Joe to be truly helpful, I was going to ask if he really wanted ghosts playing baseball in his cornfield

William

[Emersombiguns]

Joe, Go look at Mr. Mayberry's web page..Mayberry Bat houses. He is in Daingerfield,TX in E.Texas 50 mile west of La line. I have met him and was great help in getting started. He has some nice house's for sale also. He keeps bats in his year round, and has hundreds. I live in NW LA, and I have over 400 in mine. You have to listen to people here, they all have good ideas.
Be aware it may take a year or two to have them find it. But when they do, they usually come back .
Don't put one on a tree. Up 17' and in open with woods nearby. You can look at my houses and get an idea of how mine are in back yard...cloudman and I are both ham operators. We finally got to talk to each other on ham bands, and had quite a few people who listened in and asked for info....This web site has been the only one I check into for bat info-it's that good.
I even contributed some cash to keep it up-Terry and others great help...Randy Haughton,La