Bat House Forum

[newbie]

bless Thurston county! we went back for the purple-martin-house-maintenance workshop, spent the morning cleaning and repainting the old grungy ones and making a number of new ones to replace those which were next-to-junk (particularly the ones which had not been painted externally

some of them were too grungy for a quick cleanup, so those went home, one to a volunteer ... we'll either mount them around here or donate them back after we refurbish them

friendly StreamTeam coordinator took me upstairs and showed me the gallons of stain that had been donated for the bat workshop; her visiting experts had shuddered and told her NOT to stain the inside of the bat houses, so here was all this lovely untouched stain ... she let me take a container of it home so I could coat this bat house

as of today there are the recommended two coats of stain on my simple bat house; I was surprised to find it dried to a dark BROWN rather than black as I'd expected --- actually it looks like it was dipped in expensive dark chocolate ... following their recommendations, I didn't try to paint the inside though of course I stained the "landing area" and was careful to stain the raw edges on the ventilation slot on the lower front

anyone else have data as to whether bats prefer a dark-stained interior versus raw wood?

oh, I did salvage that old strandboard at the hardware store, came across another smaller piece at local secondhand store (had to pay 50 cents for that), and since we had SUN today, I had those drying out on the front deck

the HazoHouse trading shed yielded exterior latex paint in medium-dark green; the hardware store had some exterior latex in dark gray and latex stain in dark red .... I'll have fun seeing how they look after application (on another bat house) and see how the bats like them

I may go ahead and paint the entire gable of the storage building in some dark color, to see if that will help warm the bat boxes up, that I mount there --- right now it's slightly-weathered T1-11 over 1-inch exterior ply; if I were REALLY ambitious, I would put another layer external to it, spaced out 3/4 inch ... that'd be one humungous bat-habitat -- 45 feet wide by three to 15 feet tall ....

I better make sure the bats are using the simple box before I go overboard ...

now as the sun sets, I'd better get that strandboard under cover ---

[kent]

I have used painted and stained western red cedar, 1" x 12" boards and 1" x 6" and 1 x 8" beveled cedar siding, for bat house baffles.

Without looking at all my bat house records I would estimate that 10 of my bat houses have painted or stained baffles in them.

These houses are occupied by little browns ,northern long - eared myotis nursery colonies. I looked at my records of 2 of my houses that have Indiana bats in them. One of the houses with the Indiana bats has stained beveled cedar siding baffles.

I am always looking for cedar wood to use for baffles, when siding contractor or remodelers are going to tear off cedar siding or cedar boards from a house they will give me a call. If possible I make arrangements and I remove the cedar siding . This way I try not to damage the siding and can use more of it. The siding is usually always stained or painted. I do not remove the paint or stain , doesn't seem to bother the bats.

I live about 10 miles north of Galena , IL. where a lots of houses built in the 1800's are located.

There have been bats under the shutters of some of these houses for over 100 years. The shutters are painted and wood houses are painted some of the shutters and houses the paint is lead based. The paint does not seem to deter the bats from roosting behind the shutters.

Kent Borcherding

[newbie]

the last few days have featured intermittent sun, so I filled my completed bat house with cedar and fir bark chips, and put it outside in the sun, to let the aged chips provide some "aromatherapy" and old-wood smell for the raw interior of the bat house

I've also managed to locate and salvage several goodsized pieces of well-weathered strandboard, and to take apart several pallet boards made of roughsawn wood

the local Habitat for Humanities surplus shop yielded some coated drywall screws and some latex caulk at half the retail price, and they donated some black paint which had begun to thicken up (don't know if that will be useful or not, yet)

now to measure and cut and caulk and screw it all together

will be interesting to see if old strandboard holds up under bat use for a number of years -- I recall reading an article about California bats in a dam, where the researcher used carpet for dividers between chambers, and had to discard the carpet after a year's use because it absorbed the bats' excretions

I suppose staining the surface would render the wood impervious to moisture, but that might also make it too slick for the bats to cling comfortably, which was my idea behind using strandboard in the first place, it's already textured, doesn't need to be "texturized" by screws or nails or jigsaw blades or carton-cutters

I haven't yet found an inexpensive source of thick earthenware floor tile, but the black paint ought to work for those when I do, especially if I adopt the idea of enclosing them in a mini solar panel, on the roof or side of the nursery style box

comments?