Anyone have a bat house?

My bat house came with the house and has been populated by a growing family of bats for the three years we have lived here. I have been using the guano to help the compost pile along.

Suddenly this past week or two, there has been no more guano and no more bat sounds. They seem to have abandoned the house and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience they can share as to why they might have left and if it will be easy for a new bat family to find the house and move in?

There haven't been any changes around the home, although there was a bullfrog migration recently that taught me about bullfrogs! I hope the bullfrogs didn;t eat the bat family because we have our fair share of mosquitoes I wanted the bats to eat. The bats did seem to be really crowded in there this year. Any tips on attracting new bats? Or why the old bats would leave?

Our local bat population has been decimated the past 2 years. I hope your bats return.

I wonder if the bats left because the frogs are eating the mosquitoes? Maybe there aren't enough mosquitoes to share, and the bats moved on to 'greener pastures'....

No idea how to attract a new bat family - but if one bat family found the bat house hospitable, another probably will, too. I'd clean it out well, though, just in case there was some sort of bacteria or fungus that affected the former tenants.

Good luck!

My understanding is (I'm far from an expert!) that they try to stay together as a colony -- so when the house gets too small, they all move.

Found this that might help you even more:

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/wildlife/living/living_with_bats.htm

Baaahhhh....I know they're a good thing, and necessary and I love that they're around, but boy, I don't wanna see them any more than I absolutely have to. LOL. I think it's great you can handle it, but after having a bat in my apartment, with me and my 5 month old daughter, and then hearing about my neighbor and her daughter having to go through a round of rabies shots because a bat swooped them....gah. I'm totally creeped out by them. It's irrational; like with my relative fear of spiders. Although, the fact that the exterminator was scared to deal with him, and giving me all these statistics on them being the most rabid animal around, etc...I have a healthy respect for their disease carrying prospects. Anyway, good luck attracting a new bat family. Love that people are into the ecosystem and maintaining a nice balance on their property.

Silverbug, from one phobic to another....breeeeeeeaaaaaathe.

I'm getting past my spider phobia this year -- I discovered a big brown momma nursery web spider had built her next in my garden peas -- and she's staying around to guard the nest now that the babies have hatched.

She puts gooseflesh up and down my arms, and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I don't touch her or her brood, because I'm guessing she's doing yeoman duty as the watchdog in my SFG.

Brrrrrr....shiver.

Must. breathe.

LaFee wrote:My understanding is (I'm far from an expert!) that they try to stay together as a colony -- so when the house gets too small, they all move.

Found this that might help you even more:

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/wildlife/living/living_with_bats.htm

A most excellent link LaFee, thanks!

LaFee and silverbug, as a kid I used to have night terrors about spiders, and that was mild in comparison to my daytime reactions to them. Later, when I was in college, I lived in a basement dorm room where we had so many spiders that I finally just gave up the phobia and roomie and I started naming them: Fred, Norman, Byron, Ethelred, etc. Don't know why we thought they were mostly boy spiders. Your nursery web spider sounds like a Gertrude, or maybe Anastasia?

We currently have two baby golden orb spiders hanging out in our tomatoes. As long as I know where they are and can avoid contact with their little tiny webs, we can all be happy! DH and I have not been able to agree yet on names.

Here is a photo of what I assume is their great-grandmother, taken a couple of years ago. She'd spun her final web of the season betwen the asparagus and a hanging basket. I came out to go to work one morning and discovered her building an egg sac. We were expecting our first freeze of the season that night and it seemed she knew what was coming. I felt as though mother nature had given me a privileged glimpse of an ancient rite.

Holy moly, you're going to give me the heebie jeebies for the day. I chased off my big garden spider two years ago with a water hose. COULD NOT DEAL. Beautiful, but frightening for whatever irrational reason. It's not like they want anything to do with me...although three weeks ago, something with some poison bit me on the heinie and left a big ole red streak up my butt cheek and itched for a week. Thankfully that was all that happened. LOL. Wow, lovely golden spider, but it's toooooooo creepy for me to look at this early in the morning.

somehow this thread must have stayed in my brain overnight - I wore my bat hair clip today! =)

Ms Minchin - do the bats over-winter in their house or do they find somewhere else to "sleep"? It could be the disease has spread to them if they were exposed to others over the winter. Or another thought is that many bat species have nursing colonies where the females congregate in the early spring to have their babies. Once the babies are weaned, they are off on their own. This also could mean a moving-out this time of year.

I believe more will come. It already smells like bats and not like paint or chemicals so they know it's safe. Have some patience - I know people who have had one up for 10 years with no occupants. How exciting yours came with your house!!

I know this topic is on the old side, but I figured I'd post here instead of starting a new one. We are looking into getting a bat house as well. We have bats in our neighborhood, and I love to sit outside in the evenings and watch them swoop around eating dinner.

Any ideas on how to attract them to a bat house? We had one a couple years ago, make it's home in the corner of our entry way outside the front door, so everytime you'd open the door there it was. It stayed there for a week or two than it was gone. It was pretty neat, thankfully it didn't end up in the house!

Lol it is pretty old! You did some diggin to revive this one That's alright though. We love it when new members really dig in and search around. That's what it's here for!
Anyway, the foundation store sells bat houses. Here is the link if you're interested.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/bat-houses-insect-protection/

LOL, I like to dig through the archives for stuff, usually just reading them will give you the answers you seek...once in awhile though you need to revive it. lol

Thanks for the link.

White nose syndrome is a widespread fungus problem that has been decreasing the bat populations for years. There is a good explanation in the link below. I put up a bat house carefully minding the height and placement. Five years ago observed lots of bats yet today there are still no resident bats in the house. Also noticed a severe decrease in bat sightings the past 2 years. This is sad. We need bats to eat bugs.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111106192825.htm