All  About Bats

Steve Bridges

Kimas Tejas Nursery

Would you like a little help with your mosquito problem this year? Put up a bat house! No, you don't have to worry about any bats creeping around at night saying, “I want to suck your blood…”. Bats are actually very harmless little creatures. You can actually build or buy a bat house and attract these beneficial mammals to your own property. Why, you ask, would you want to do that? One little brown bat can catch 1200 mosquito sized insects in one hour. That is a whole lot of mosquitoes that you don't have to swat! 

Bats are actually some of the most beneficial mammals on earth. With almost 1000 different kinds of bats, they account for nearly a quarter of all mammal species. Austin is the home to the largest urban bat colony in the world, with over 1.5 million bats living under the Congress Avenue bridge that spans the Colorado River. The Austin bats consume between 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects each night. You can witness the awesome site of these bats leaving the bridge at dusk. If you have ever used bat guano as a fertilizer, chances are it came from Bracken Cave, Texas located near San Antonio. This cave is occupied from mid-March to November by over 20 million Mexican Free-Tail bats that eat approximately 200 tons of insects in one night! You say you don't have a cave or a bridge? Well, you don't need one. With a little woodworking skill you can build your own very easily.

If you can build a box out of wood, you can build a bat house. Build a box that is twelve inches wide and four inches thick, leaving the top and bottom of the house open. The back piece should be longer than the rest of the box so you will have a place to attach it later.  The length or height of the house should be around 18 inches. Now you need to put a top on it. The bats need to hang, upside down, in the box. Cut a piece of wood to fit the top of the box. Before you nail it on, attach two or three narrow strips of wood on the inside of the top piece. Nail the top piece to the box. You will leave the bottom of the box open so the bats will have a place to enter their new home. Mount your new bat box on the side of a house or pole at least 15 feet off the ground. The ideal location would receive about 4-5 hours of sunlight per day. You should be able to house at least 15 bats in a house of this size.

     People should never attempt to handle a bat at any time. Bats found on the ground are sick or injured and should be disposed of carefully. It is true, that bats, as well as all mammals, carry rabies. But less than one half of one percent of bats are usually infected and the beneficial aspects of bats far out-weigh the problems that they pose.

     You say you need more complete instructions on how to build a bat house? You can buy "The Bat House Builder's Handbook," by Merlin D. Tuttle, and Donna L. Hensley.  Just think, if you have 15 bats hunting mosquitoes for eight hours a night, that is over 18,000 mosquitoes a day that you don't have to worry about!