Saturday, April 27, 2024

How To Build A Bat House To Attract More Bats To Your Yard

bat house

I write about practical tips, tricks, and product reviews on how to get rid of unwanted pests around your home and garden. I hope you find this site helpful and come back often to see my latest posts. If you are looking for more information on bats and the eviction process read the post on The Best Way To Get Rid Of Bats. Attach the front to the sides with glue and screws to finish the box.

Add Roof Shingles

If it needs to be trimmed, simply lay out your part oversized and trim all four edges. The creator of this bat nest put some serious thought into the design. They wanted it to be cheap to build and lightweight too. You need someone that has been trained to handle wildlife.

Step 1: Wood Cutting (30 minutes)

This is a great resource for someone that is a beginner in building anything but especially bat houses. It offers detailed instructions and pictures that help too. Different species of bats (there are nearly 1,400 worldwide and almost 50 in North America) use bat boxes for different reasons, such as breeding, roosting, or hibernating. But if you put one up, there’s a chance it’s just the thing a colony in your area needs to survive another season. Or create your own bat shape using circular and oblong templates called French curves (available at most office supply stores).

Step 1: Measure and cut the plywood

One, two and three chamber bat house kits available. All kits have been designed to meet Bat Conservation International (BCI) certification requirements, once built and painted. For Bat Week, Habitat for Bats is offering the following discounts.

If bats do not occupy your bat house after 2 years, try moving the bat house to a new location. Whether or not your bat house is inhabited, by installing one, you're doing your part to help bats. Bat roosts should also be placed near, but not shaded by, trees.

Once the ends are square, leave the panel on the sled to cut graspable grooves. Set the blade height between 1/16 and ⅛ inch, and cut grooves every quarter-inch or so. Bats are very particular about where they’ll live, and their houses have to be constructed in a specific way that encourages them to nest. The inside of this house is painted black to keep it dark and warm, and the outside is a color that makes it blend in with the surroundings.

The Pole Bat Box

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If you live in a particularly warm area, you may be fine leaving the natural color of your wood. In the past, it was thought that you should try leaving the bat house as natural as possible, but that is just not the case anymore. Giving the house 3 or 4 coats of exterior latex paint or stain will prevent rotting, increasing the life of the structure and providing protection for bats from leaks and drafts.

Using a post is one of the most effective ways to meet all the recommended criteria for making a successful home for bats. In the following article, we’ll take you through a step-by-step guide to installing your new Four-Chamber Premium bat house. For more information on choosing the ideal location for your bat house, see our other helpful articles, “How to Choose a Bat House Location” and “How to Attract Bats to your Bat House”. “This is probably one of the more important things if you actually want the bat house to work,” says Mizejewski. “Mounting is what people often get wrong, and then the box does not work.” In order to move in, bats need to feel that the box is warm enough, close to water, and safe from predators. Best siting is 20’-30’ from the nearest trees and at least 10’ (from the bottom of the roost)—12’-20’ is better—above ground (or above the tallest vegetation beneath the bat house).

How to attract bats to your backyard

So as much as you may want to turn your yard into a place bats want to be, you might have a hard time if they don’t have a place to hang out. Building a bat house helps address this problem and may replace a small portion of any habitat they’ve lost. You could just put up a bat house and hope for the best, but there are several things you can do to better attract them.

In colder regions, bats have a strong preference for dark brown or black houses and they should be position to maximize solar heating. In hot climates, medium brown houses can still be attractive if they’re well-vented and have a metal roof to protect from the mid-day sun. Unless protected by a roof, lighter-brown (or equivalent) and well-vented houses are preferred. And not everyone has large trees that they can place their bat box in.

bat house

But there is something that makes this particular bat box stand out to me. However, even though this bat house doesn’t stand out, it certainly appears to do the job for bats. This tutorial is very detailed between information, instructions, and a video. The tools the site gives should help make this build a little easier. Most bat houses are on the small side because bats are not large creatures.

You may even wish to read more about criteria for successful bat houses before deciding on measurements of your own. Since you will need to make grooves in the wood, for the bats to hang from, be sure the back of the bat house is constructed from solid piece(s). Placed on the outside wall of your home, a bat house can be any size, within reason. Some bat houses are 2′ x 3′, while some have had success with smaller homes of 14″ by 24″.

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Just make sure that your paint or wood stain is as natural as it gets. Be sure to drop each piece down from the top (about 1″), leaving just enough space to attach your top cap which prevents water from getting in. There is never any guarantee that bats will take up temporary residence in your bat house, but when they do, you will be ready. One measurement that is perhaps more important than either size or shape is the space that the bats will roost in. It is known that the average bat can consume around 600 bugs per hour, between 3,000 and 4,200 insects each night.

Make sure it hangs all the way down to the "landing pad" area so bats have something to grab on to. New pieces of exterior rated plywood and cedar are better choices than old scraps of lumber. Picking a location for your new bat house is one of the most important steps to successfully attracting bats. Bats will be looking for a home near water, high up and that provides warmth for raising young. It’s important to choose a good site for your bat house.

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