Building a Bat House

 

What I have built is a place for REAL bats to take up residence in the wild, not a piece of finely crafted garden decor.

Bat houses are very simple. Bats will live in caves and inside a wall, how complicated can it be? There are dozens of websites with plans for bat houses on the internet but I found the article “Efficiency of Bat Houses” by M.J. Pybus – Alberta Environment, to be the most useful source of general information about building one. I think you should understand why they are built the way they are and what the necessary components are, in order to build a successful bat house. Following are a few important points that I have learned:

• The interior surfaces must be roughened to give the adult and baby bats something to hold onto. many directions say to line the inside of the bathouse with nylon screening for this, but I have some doubts about the safety of screening. I have seen too many tiny creatures caught in small fencing and screening. 
• The 3' tall bat houses are the ones used most often. 
• The cavities can be from 3/4" to 2" but the opening should be only 3/4" to prevent predators from entering. My bat house is 3' tall and the spaces are 3/4" thick. I don't think the width of the house matter much. 
• Old wood is best. The bats will wait a year until it is aged in the weather if you use new wood. It can be artificially aged by rubbing it with mud. Bat guano is apparently great for this, too. (I don't think I'll be going there.)
• The bathouse needs to be mounted about 15-20' off the ground, in the sun and not near trees with branches to get in the way of direct flight. A post is better or an old TV antennae, like I have. 
• In the north it should be painted black, with non toxic latex paint, to absorb the heat. In the hot south it should be painted white to reflect the heat. 
• When mounted it should tilt back about 10 degrees. This will cut down on the percentage of babies that fall out.  

After a lot of research I have decided that I am ready to start building. I have been collecting the materials for months with this planned as one of my many winter projects. This one has to be completed and in place before the bats return in the spring. 

 With the addition of my new radial arm saw (I love power tools!) I am on my way.

First thing this morning, after opening the hen house door, turning on their light and waking them up, (Good morning, Ladies and Gent!) I went to the shop and began pulling out the wood. 

 

 

I decided, after some thought to make it 3′ long and 18″ wide with the required 3/4″ gap for the cavities. I gathered the pieces of wood from the pile and cut them to the correct sizes. Here is the pile of 18″ wide cross pieces and 1″ x 3/4″ framer pieces which are 3′ long. I am fortunate enough to have aged framer pieces. I will have to artificially age the cross pieces with dirt. I will leave it outside for the remainder of the winter to help age the wood, as well. I hope to have it mounted the same week it is finished, if there is time for that. Yes, my shop table is BLUE (not my doing.)

Before putting it together I have to roughen the inside walls of the bat house. I looked at all the tools I had for this and started with a raster on the drill, didn’t work very well. I then switched to a large bit, also not very good for this. After trying a few things, I settled on the claw of a hammer. It worked the best. I covered one piece with holes, then turned it upside down and did it again, slanting the other way, so there are crevices for the bats to hold onto going up and down. Finally I had each piece covered with dents. The interior pieces needed to be done on both sides. This turned out to be the most tiring and time consuming part of the project.

These are the inside pieces after rubbing dirt on them to age them. I used a large hand brush for this instead of a cloth. I should have used muddy water as it would have soaked in and filled the crevices, but I didn’t. (Hindsight is a wonderful thing.)

Now that the individual pieces are finished, it is time to put it together. While I prefer to work with screws, I used 3″ nails for this job. Obviously 3″ is not long enough for the entire depth of the house, which has two large cavities, each 3/4″ side. I nailed it together in stages. I put one nail in each board to hold them in place. After it has all been put together, I will put in two nails, in each side of each board, on the outside. In the above picture they are not yet nailed or aged. I am just putting them together to make sure it all fits. 

This is the basic house, before it has all been nailed together.

 

 

The underside of the top piece needs to be roughened and aged, as well. 

 

 

Basic completed and nailed bat house. It will need a slanted roof piece to keep the rain and snow out. Some internet sites recommend sealing the cracks on the outside to further help keep out the weather. I have also read that it needs air circulation so that it doesn’t build up too much humidity from the bat bodies. I am not going to seal it, as I don’t think this one needs it, but I do have some scrap shingles that I may tack on the back which will be facing north. I will add them IF I can find them under the snow. I was using them to line the flowerbed but can spare a few to help keep the bats warm and dry. 

I already have bats that have made their home for two summers inside the wall of my house. It’s these bats that I don’t want to lose when I seal them out this spring so I am going to put this bat house near by, on the unused TV antennae attached to the house in the back yard.

 

 

Now to put the back piece on to use for mounting it on the pole, or wherever you are going to put it. Mine is going up there.

 

 

 

 

I tried several mounting methods and settled on this one in the picture below.

 

 

 

I added a piece at the bottom to give it the desired slant to help keep the baby bats in the house.

This is the finished product. It is a large bat house and will hopefully hold many bat families. Obviously it is not a piece of garden decor but has been built solely with the requirements of the bats in mind. No one will see it up there. I may still run water into the cavities to soak the mud into the wood and help age it before it is hung in place. If I can find the shingles, I will put those on the back, as well.

I have mounted it on the antennae here, near the ground, just to test the mounting method. One of us will climb up there and put it in place after work today, probably me. 

A Sunny Winter Walk

 

I took advantage of a day off at work and some beautiful winter sun to get a few things done around the home. The picture above is of our mailbox and the line of spruce trees that protect us from the road. They are beautiful trees and such a straight line, too. Hmmm, they must have used a string for that.

It’s this mailbox that was on the top of the “to-do” list today. It needed to be put back in place before the postman came. Hubby brought it in from the field on the way home from work yesterday. We are in a never ending battle with the snow plow over our space requirement for the mailbox. How much space does one little mailbox use? Can the driver of the county snow plow not see our black mailbox in all that white snow? Does he/she have some hidden agenda to rid the countryside of all mailboxes? Are these mailboxes a threat? In my frustration at constantly having to redo the mailbox I have considered a 1′ wide cement pillar sunk 3′ into the ground as my next mailbox post, but I can’t put anything permanent there that will damage the snow plow. ( It would be a difficult thing to do, damaging the snow plow, as the plow implement attached to the tractor is taller than I am.) Can we not work something out here? If the county snow plow drivers will leave my mailbox where it stands, I promise it will never jump up and bite them. That’s a fair trade-off, don’t you think?

When I first moved to the country I bemoaned the fact that my mailbox listed to one side, as it is attached to a post just barely being held in place by cement blocks. I was told that it is that way for a reason and there is no point in sinking the post into the ground. The snowplow will just take it out on its way by. I have seen some beautiful and creative mailboxes in the country. I wonder how they keep them in place. Do they bribe the snowplow drivers with coffee or hot chocolate as they drive by? That is something I have considered, as well, but I could never just stand there for hours in the hopes that the plow would come. The coffee would be cold by then and I would be frozen. Naw…not worth it.

I have seen one innovation that I would love to make. A mailbox attached to a long pole that stretches 12′ out to the road from a fence post. The pole is attached to the fence post with hinges so it is just pushed aside by the plow and springs back into place after it has gone by. Now that’s a brilliant idea! Look for updates on the mailbox problem in years to come. I don’t say “this year” because I have a long list of more immediate things to do before I can get that far down the to-do list, however, if I have to replace the mailbox too many more times this winter, it will move up on the “to-do” list.

I did a little snow shovelling. Even with a snowblower for the driveway we still need to clear the smaller areas.I had to shovel out the gate into the chicken pen so I could go in there and open their door. They need sunshine too. Being the spoiled gals that they are, I had to shovel some snow away from their door, as well. I also went inside and shooed them out with the shovel. I put lots of treats outside for them. It wasn’t long before they were out in the sunshine. It is not that cold today and they have been shut up indoors through most of the long, hard winter. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

We also need to shovel the snow from the wood pile. The ice from the shop roof has fallen on it and covered most of it. Can’t get that stuff with the snowblower, much as I’d like to give it a try. We still need that pile of wood for the wood stove. It’s not THAT warm today. 

 

This sits beside the wood pile. The winter farmer’s best friend!

 

 

 

 

Our secured and locked cellar door! I adore real fieldstone! The inside of the cellar is fieldstone too. There is another door into the cellar and basement from inside the house. I am planning on writing a piece called “Root Cellars, How to Make Them and How to Use Them” in the near future.

I continued on my sunny day walk. Look! footie-prints in the snow. It’s probably that squirrel that I see on the porch almost every day. Yep, they go across the yard, over the well casing and up the stairs to the deck-porch.

This is the squirrel that has discovered my stash of acorns for putting on grapevine wreaths.

 

Sure enough, he’s been in the acorns and eaten most of them. No wonder he likes my front porch so much! (I grew up in Tennessee. I have spent most of my adult life in Canada but I still say things like, "sure enough". Occasionally I might be caught saying, "y'all". It comes back when I'm tired or have been watching a very southern person on TV.) 

These are the pinecones I saved for the wreaths. We will probably use most of them for fire starters. I never did get those wreaths decorated. Here they are drying, waiting patiently for spring and what’s left my the acorns. 

 

These are the grapevine wreaths I made in the summer, drying on the porch. I have great plans for those next year!
 

 

The fierce protecting farm dog has decided that it is indeed a nice day and comes out with me. He decides not to brave the snow and ice today and just wanders around on the deck. After all, he is 14 years old. He may be mellow now but he was a force to be reckoned with in his younger days! All the neighborhood kids were afraid of him and he chased anything that moved. 

 

 

Also on our porch is winter greenery. See, you, too can have greenery in the winter. It’s called “plastic” and could be a new and innovative idea for farm decorating! Get yours while they are still available at every Walmart!

 

 

My new brugs are enjoying the winter sun too! These are brugmansias. They are beautiful tropical plants. I got cuttings from trading all over the world for them. They grow inside in the winter with the houseplants. (See my post "Growing Brugmansias".)

 

 

 

I see my winter sowing on the deck. There are many, many tiny seeds planted in these containers under the snow. When the warm spring sun warms them up and shines on them, they will sprout and be protected under the cover of the plastic tops – just like mini greenhouses. Winter sowing is a great way to start new seeds and to get my hands in the dirt in the middle of January when the ground outside is frozen. I love the smell of dirt. I have to smell dirt even if it is winter!

We do BBQ in the wintertime. When we lived in a subdivision, many years ago, our neighbors thought we were a little “off” for firing up the BBQ in -20 temps. I don’t know what the big deal is. I think we are privy to some information that they are not… it’s not cold in front of the BBQ.

Well, back to work. I have such a long to-do list for this winter. I don’t think I will ever get it all done. The next job is building a large bat house with my new radial arm saw. I love power tools!