9 Tips for Maintaining Your Bat Box

Once your bat box is installed, it doesn’t mean everything is over. You need to regularly maintain your bat house to ensure it is fully functional and attractive to bats. Regular maintenance can also extend the life of your bat house, ensuring it provides a safe haven for bats for a long time. If you don’t know where to start, here are some tips to keep your bat house in top shape.

Clean Regularly

Clean your bat house at least once a year, preferably in early spring or late fall when bats are not active in the box . This will allow you to remove old droppings, debris, and any nesting materials left behind by previous bats. This will help prevent the growth of harmful bacteria and ensure your bat house is ready for the new bat season.

Sealed Seams

Before the bats hibernate, you should check the bat house carefully to see if there are any damages in the seams. Bat boxes may crack after being exposed to the wind, sun, cold and heat day after day. Once the sun shines through the seams, the bats may feel uncomfortable and give up using your bat house. And cracks will cause the insulation performance of the bat box to decrease, which is unacceptable for bats in winter. Bats will not hibernate in cold roosts. The best way to solve this problem is to repair all seams with roof repair materials before winter comes, and check whether the roofing paper and landing screen are intact.

Painting the Bat Box

Bat Box is installed outdoors. Over time, long-term exposure to rain, snow and sunlight will cause the bat house to corrode and age. In this case, you can paint the bat house with weather-resistant paint every year to delay its decay. In addition, the color of the Bat Box is also particular. You should paint it in dark colors that bats like, such as black and dark brown. These inconspicuous dark colors can not only avoid predators such as snakes and eagles, but also absorb extra heat to ensure that bats spend the hibernation period comfortably.

Remove Beehives and Other Pests

There are often some uninvited guests living or nesting in the bat box, the most common of which are wasps. They build gray honeycomb nests on the ceiling of the bat house, although they will not attack the bats. But over time, the size of the nest will increase and eventually encroach on the bat's roosting space. As a result, the bats abandon this shelter and look for other spaces. You need to find and remove the newly built nests with sticks as soon as possible. Of course, there may also be some aggressive bee colonies nesting in it. If these insects settle in the bat house, the bats will leave. Take care when cleaning these insects to avoid bites.

Clean the Guano

Modern bat houses are designed so that the bat droppings do not accumulate inside the box. These shelters are self-cleaning and the droppings accumulate on the ground directly below the bat house. These materials will naturally biodegrade and usually do not need to be removed. However, if you use a bat house with a baffle at the bottom, you will need to clean it regularly. The baffle will accumulate droppings and breed bacteria, which is not conducive to the living environment of bats.

Position and Location Check

Although you checked the location when you installed the bat box, the surrounding environment is changing, so you still need to check regularly to see if there are any predators that pose a threat to the bats. Check the entrance of the bat house for new obstacles (such as branches or other structures). Over time, debris, branches, or other objects may block the entrance. Check and clean the entrance regularly to ensure that bats can easily enter and exit the nest.

Check the Bulkhead

Usually, there is a partition inside the bat house, especially the large two-room and three-room bat houses. These bat houses can accommodate more bats and have very good insulation. However, after long-term use, the baffle may warp. Although this does not affect the use, it will reduce the available space for bats and may cause crowding. Especially if there are already many bats living in it. At this time, you may need to replace the partition or set up a new shelter next to the old bat house.

Overcrowding and Overheating

If you find bats frequently appearing at the bottom or outside of the bat house , it may be that the temperature inside is too high or that there is no room for more bats. The best solution is to place a second bat house near or behind the original one . If this is not possible, you can only move the box to a different location with less sunlight (usually not recommended), unless there are other bat houses nearby. If it is simply overheating, you can also paint the box a light color to reduce the absorption of the sun's heat.

If you find a lone or fallen bat while checking the bat box, please handle it with caution. Do not touch it directly, and wear gloves if necessary. Bats are potential carriers of rabies. Please be vigilant about bats in poor condition and contact your local wildlife management department or public health agency for treatment. Not only bats, but any wild animals should not be handled without protection.