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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:16 pm |
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Terry Lobdell
Member
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:31 pm |
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The bat house on the middle left has 5 crevices of roughly 5/8" thickness. It has received much use as a maternity roost for little browns. The baffles are 3/8" plywood covered with black plastic crosstitch mesh. The bats really like it but it gets brittle with age so I have stopped using it and now use only pet mesh.
The house on the middle right I had great expectations for but only receives some use from bachelors. The baffles are saw kerfed weathered wood 3/4" thick. I'm guessing the mother little browns prefer the mesh of the house on the left.
The house on top faces north but does get some exposure to the sun. The exterior is covered with black felt paper and plastic from 2 liter pop bottles for solar gain. The reason I did this was due to the partial shading of the pole and intermittent shading from trees throughout the day. It proved to be successful as I had a big increase in usage this summer from the little brown maternity.
The little brown mothers only used the top house and the middle left house of these five. The other 3 received use by bachelors only.
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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:34 pm |
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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:40 pm |
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Here is another view facing north. Due to the trees on the right These houses don't get any early morning sun. They don't get any real sun until about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning.
The house on the lower left is a single crevice with a back vent/access. It has pet mesh for a baffle surface. It got much more use than the house on the lower right which has an osb (wafer board) baffle surface.
Last edited on Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:43 pm by Terry Lobdell
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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:45 pm |
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Terry Lobdell
Member
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Posted: Fri Jan 11th, 2008 04:51 pm |
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In this view you can see how the houses are mounted offset to allow plenty of flight space for the bats when they exit. I did exit counts of these houses many times in the summer of 2007 and all five houses had plenty of room for the bats as they left.
the bottoms of the middle houses are 17 feet off the ground.
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Joe Spencer
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| Joined: | Mon Feb 11th, 2002 |
| Location: | Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 481 |
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 03:42 am |
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Fantastic Terry! Since the middle left house is all black, tall and vented maybe it offers a greater range of temperatures to satisfy the nursery colony?
What is the total #of bat houses you have on your property including those mounted on the home?
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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 04:35 am |
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Joe, yes the middle house on the left is about 40" tall, vented on the front and has small vents on the sides. I do agree the extra heighth does give a nice temperature range. The crevices only have a finished width of 11". It was fairly easy to mount because of the narrow width. I should also add that this house has not had much of a wasp problem. Maybe due to the narrow 5/8" crevices?
My highest exit count before pups this summer (2007) was 50+ from this structure. The highest count from the tall black house I've ever gotten has been in the low 40's (all little browns).
It is difficult to do exit counts on these houses because I can't set where I have a view of them silhouetted against the sky.
My total numbers after pups were born this summer was 60-70 little browns and approx. 40 big browns. This was for all the bat houses on my property.
Counting my bat houses at other locations probably 300-350 bats total.
That number should rise this year as I expand to 2 state parks that already have hundreds of bats roosting in maintenance buildings.
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Joe Spencer
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 01:54 pm |
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Wow very nice. How many bat houses do you have including those on your home? 
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Terry Lobdell
Member
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 02:28 pm |
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Thanks Joe! I have around 30 mounted on poles and on my home. At other locations I have maybe another 20.
As of 2007 I had 2 big brown maternity colonies and 3 little brown maternity colonies in my bat houses all in NW PA.
Just this week the PA game commission came and picked up lumber I had sawed and donated for construction of a bat condo at a nearby gameland. I will post pictures as soon as it is built!
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Joe Spencer
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| Joined: | Mon Feb 11th, 2002 |
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 04:50 pm |
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Fantastic! On a grander scale, I think one of the easiest and keep it simple approaches is to build a 8'x8' condo using 4'x8' sheets of plywood and 1" rough cut grippable partitions using two 12" stacked partitions for 2' of verticle roosting space. Use four 4X4X12' high corner support posts resting on top of concrete piers you can pick up cheaply at home depot etc. This design would basically be a mini version of the UFL bat house. The partitions would be slide/drop in utilizing a side door on the gable end to the attic for access and maintenance and modifications. I'd consider keeping the attic open (no interior roof) to allow a small upward draft and airflow. I would hope and assume that paper wasps would be more likely to build their nests in the attic and totally avoid the chambers below where the majority of the bats would reside. The open to dark attic concept would allow one to easily place heat sinks inside and make adjustments year to year to see what would be most favorable based on occupancy counts and usage. Any suggestions and thoughts on the latter anyone?
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Terry Lobdell
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 05:59 pm |
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It all makes sense to me Joe! The ease of construction and easy access for maintenance would really be good.........Much of my rough sawed lumber is rough enough that I may be able to use it as is for baffles.........will do some experimenting with it this summer.
Do you have any condos in your area?
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Joe Spencer
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 09:49 pm |
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None that I'm aware of Terry. 
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IowaNate
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Posted: Sat Jan 12th, 2008 10:13 pm |
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This is slightly related to the subject in the last few posts and wasp nests. There is an old Missouri style bat house at the Indian Creek Nature Center that only has 12" tall partitions and a large open attic. Granted only a few bats have used this house due to it's close proximity to trees and only 9 feet off the ground, but the paper wasps have not interfered with the partitions at all, every one of their nests were in the open attic area. This house has alternating crevices of 3/4, 1, and 1-1/4". It was built and placed about 15 years ago. There just seems to be so much wasted space with the crevices over 1" and the attic is about 18 vertical inches of open (wasted) space. I agree with Joe on a simple large house design that incorporates an open attic, but no more than 12" of open vertical space.
However, the house has been home to nearly as many bug eating grey tree frogs as it has been to bats and wasps! 
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