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kent B
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Posted: Fri Oct 22nd, 2004 08:11 pm |
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If anyone knows of any old barns that have large bat colonies in them, I would be very interested in a descripiton of the barn. Picture if possible.
I am willing to pay a small reward for any info.
The reason for my interest is there are going to be a number of older larger dairy barns demolished to make way for new highways in this area of Wis.
The barns can be purchased very very cheap , but have to be removed.
Tony Koch in Oregon has had much success with bat colonies in a barn.
I believe it would be possible to rebuild the old barns to a size that could easily house up to 100,000 bats.
Reroofing the barns would be major cost, possibly get the shingles or metal for the roof from a conservation minded material company.
If one could get a break on the roofing should be able to build a 100,000 bat house -ballpark price less than $15,000.
I am going to be using the flat bed semi trailer bat house idea in some timber in central Wis.
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brockbat
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Posted: Sun Apr 17th, 2005 03:07 am |
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Hi Kent. I was just looking at an old barn today with that very thought. How many bats would roost here if it were made right. I don't have to move the barn as it belongs to my inlaws and I will most likely be buying the property from them soon. It's a very large barn 70 x 100 feet and nice and tall, steep pitch roof with a north and south face. My questions so far are; How draft proof does the whole barn have to be. How much guano are they going to produce, And how to collect it and sell it. Anyway I'm just in the planning stages and am very excited about it. I'm putting up a 4 chamber nursery house on the outside of the barn this week to see if I can get a colony started. I'll keep the bat house forum updated.
Regards Brockbat.
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Joe Spencer
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| Location: | Massachusetts USA |
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Posted: Sun Apr 17th, 2005 03:26 am |
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Sounds Great! Brockbat here is something you can try: Create Open baffle concept bat houses for the interior of the barn as well. You just create some divider/baffles only and create a multi sandwich plywood roost and hang them from the rafters. Since they are sheltered from the elements from your barn roof no outside shell/side or roof is needed. This met with success in some barn somewhere, sorry I can't recall where. Not sure whether it was Tony Koch's bat houses in his barn. 
UPDATE I FOUND info on Tony and bats in his barn here: http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/v11n1-5.html
:tanbigeye:
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brockbat
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Posted: Mon Apr 18th, 2005 12:34 am |
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| Hey Joe, thanks for that info and article on barn bathouses. That picture is worth a thousand words. That design looks easy enough, but I think I'll need a roof to keep the bird droppings out of the chambers. Doves,pigeons, starlings and a few others. On another note I'm wondering how big and opening the bats would need to fly in and out of the barn. I could remove one of the vertical wall boards (12inch by 12 feet) The birds enter through a roof peak vent about 24 inchs in diameter with an 8 inch gap between the vent roof and wall. woaaa getting ahead of myself here. I'll work on some plans and post it on the forum to get feedback. Thanks Brockbat.
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