Bat House Forum

[Joe Spencer]

Below is RONNIE's recently erected Nursery House in East Texas. Nice job of getting it up for the spring season RONNIE we will be following this with interest:

[Joe Spencer]

Ronnie, I have read that many bats in Texas after being in bat houses for the spring will often abandon a bat house and relocate during summer heat extremes. A bat houses painted white on the opposite side of the pole may give the bats more temperature options. Realize this may be harder to do since pole is already up. Also the tree is great however it does give climbing predators an Easy up. You may wish to consider a predator guard on the tree about half way up from ground to bottom of bat house. Mark Kiser may be able to elaborate more on this with his vast Texas bat house experience. Good Luck....

[Mark Kiser]

A lighter colored bat house on the opposite side of the pole would be a good idea, to provide additional temperature options for bats to choose from.

Once the pole is up, attaching a second house becomes quite a challenge, however.

You could wait to see what happens this summer. If observations show another house is needed, then another house or even a second pole with a back to back set up would be a solution.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Sincerely,

Mark

Bat House Project Coordinator, BCI