BUSTING BAT MYTHS!

Bats are misunderstood creatures that are generally quite harmless to people. They do not become tangled in hair, nor do they attack humans. There have been fewer than 10 cases of human rabies infection from bats in the last 50 years!

Not many people know, care, or even appreciate bats for their many benefits. Unfortunately, most people believe the myths. When people think about bats, their minds conjure up images of a black silhouette gliding in front of a full moon on Halloween. Many people view bats as evil creatures that hang out with witches and vampires. The truth is bats are shy, gentle and intelligent creatures. Don't be afraid if a bat swoops down close to your head. It is not "attacking" you. It is probably catching a juicy mosquito that was about to bite you!

In Asia these gentle animals are symbols of good luck, long life and happiness. They are extremely clean animals, meticulous in their grooming, spending a fair part of the day and night combing and grooming their fur.

The old belief that bats are blind was started long ago when we knew little about their sophisticated gift of navigation. When bats fly, they navigate by means of a complex echolocation system. The bat sends out signals of sound waves, which are reflected back, giving the bat the location of an object as well as its texture and other characteristics. They can avoid a single human hair with extreme accuracy, even in total darkness. It is similar to how a submarine navigates using sonar and yet far more accurate and complex.

The Pallid bat (seen above & Below) - Antrozous pallidus - (I gave them the pet name "Pally") is my personal favorite bat because Pally the Pallid bat hunts scorpions!


Pally can hear the foot steps of an insect on the ground from 16 feet away! They fly, navigate and hunt with extreme accuracy. In fact all bats are extremely cool in one way or another. All species of bats are intelligent, clean, sophisticated and very misunderstood. When researching individual species of bats you will come across a common theme among them. "We still know very little about this bat." Scientists will admit we have much more to learn about these sophisticated and mysterious mammals, however every year we seem to discover something new and profound.

Recently the saliva from the South American species of bat, commonly known as Vampire Bats, has aided in the creation of a new and successful treatment for stroke patients! Even new antibiotics and other medicine have been created from the help of bats. I know in previous blogs I have beaten to death the important rolls bats play in our lives and ecosystems.

What I want is to bust the old bat myths that have plagued these mammals with human fear and persecution! Don't think of them as little blood sucking vampires! They are more like little flying kittens! Since they don't attack humans and up close they are gentle, furry and so freaking cute!

When you can let go of your unwarranted fear of bats and embrace their grace, let them into your environment, you will reap the great benefits of powerful pest control, pollination and potent fertilizer!

Give a bat a home! Visit our website, Laughingbat.com
btw, Bat Hotels make great gifts too!

Open Bottom vs. Closed Bottom Bat House

I had a great question from a customer the other day and wanted to share.

Q: I have been comparing bat houses and I wanted to know if there is a benefit to having a base at the bottom of the house vs not having a base to prevent the possible fall of a baby bat? I know not having a base is an advantage to not have birds nest in the house, but I am concerned about the safety of baby bats?

My response:
Thank you for the excellent question! Its amazing how bat mothers take care of their young. Bats share MANY of the same behavioral qualities as humans do. Bat mothers will take great care of their young and nurse them for the first two weeks of their life. After that the babies learn to fly and begin to hunt for bugs!

Just think of other animals, such as horses or cows, that can walk only moments after being born, or chicks that have to hatch themselves from their eggs. The act of the baby bats holding onto their mothers and holding onto the sides of the bat house strengthens them for their very long (average of 40 years) and happy bat lives!

Within the two weeks that the babies are still growing strong, getting ready to learn to fly, they live inside the chambers of the home, holding onto their mother and the grooved sides of the chambers.

In nature, bats would live upside down in caves, mines, barns, attics, and some in the bark of trees. Bats have been around since the age of the dinosaur and have developed the amazing ability to live hanging upside down! In nature, these baby bats do not need a safety net. Bats prefer the open bottom bat house as they can easily locate and land on the landing pad that extends below the chambers and the box.

I think bats are just amazing animals, so much so, that I wrote a little book to help people manifest successful bat homes. I include great literature along with the bat homes I sell. My husband, who is also a huge bat enthusiast, has been a professional carpenter for over 20 years. Together we build our bat homes and look to provide the HIGHEST quality bat home for the most affordable price.

Closed bottom Bat Houses are more common in Europe, however, they are larger and require regular maintenance. You would have to take a hose and regularly spray the inside of the bat house (while the bats are not currently home) to clean the build up of urine and guano. If you did not clean it regularly, the build up would increase the bat colonies chances of becoming sick or catching parasites.

Studies have shown that once a bat colony has chosen your bat house, they will return year after year. If you have chosen a good bat house they can last longer then 10 years. By using open-bottom designs, even bat houses abandoned by their human owners will remain available to bats for a long time.

Another point I would like to make is that bats are extremely clean animals, they spend most of their waking day time hours grooming themselves and each other. Since a bat house with a closed bottom would not only make it harder for them to land and enter, it would also collect all their guano (bat droppings) as well as their urine. A much healthier design is the free bottom. Most gardeners love collecting the guano for their compost as it makes an excellent fertilizer.

The Birds & the Bats

An interesting fact that many may not know is that bats are not birds! Bats and birds both can fly, yet they belong to different animal classes; birds are in a class called Aves while bats are in the class Mammalia. Bats are mammals, just like humans, which means that all bats are warm-blooded, have hair, bear live young, and feed their babies milk.

Most people think bats are some kind of flying mouse, or related somehow to rodents. Rodents will give birth to many many litters and increase their family tree by the hundreds in the span of a year. Bats on the other hand have more in common with humans as most bat species will give birth to only one baby each year! Few species will give birth to twins or triplets each year but that still pales in comparison to the multiplication power of rodents!

You will hear me talk about the importance bats play in our ecosystem and just how tragic it is that more than half of North America's 45 species are listed as endangered or close to being endangered!

Bats play a key roll in maintaining the diversity of life on earth. To give you a specific example, the Mexican Free-tailed bats from just three caves near San Antonio, Texas, consume a million pounds of insects on average nightly over local towns and farms. Two thirds of Mexico's tequila production can be attributed to the pollination of the giant cacti and agave from which tequila is made. without bats whole agricultural industries would be in jeopardy!

In fact bats play an essential role as the primary pollinators and seed dispersers, around the world, for countless trees and shrubs that are of great economic value. Bananas, dates, figs, avocados, even the endangered saguaro cactus, are dependent upon bats for pollination because they bloom at night.

Bat-dependent products:

bananas breadfruit avocados dates figs

mangoes cloves allspice nutmeg cashew nuts

cashew fruits guava chewing gum naseberry

kapok for stuffing life preservers rope tequila

balsa wood for carving and for making model airplanes

important new heart medicines

Bats are also responsible for 95% of the reforestation of the tropical rain forests through their dispersal of seeds. However, the talent that they are most known for is their enormous capacity for consuming insects! A nocturnal mammal, the bat eats when the insects are out, in contrast to birds, which eat during the day. Some bat species consume half their weight in bugs in a single night!

Birds and bats do not compete for food or space, so your bat house is compatible with your bird houses and bird feeders, should you have any. I would however warn you to keep your dogs and cats away from the bat house while you are working on attracting occupants.

Bats my not be related to birds but they do share the same predators! Outdoor cats, snakes and raccoons will pray on bats. There are snakes that learn to climb trees or buildings in order to get into a bat house or roosting site! This is why I believe mounting your bat house on a pole to be the safest option.

In later blogs I will go into greater detail about the optimal strategies for mounting your bat houses so stay tuned!

Visit our website Laughingbat.com!

WHY OWN A BAT HOUSE?

As longtime animal lovers and bat enthusiasts, my husband and I were surprised at the number of people who have never heard of a BAT HOUSE! Since we started offering our handcrafted Redwood Bat Hotels for sale, our inbox has been flooded with questions about how to manifest a successful bat house.
My goal for this blog is that after reading it you will not only want to have a bat house of your own, you will also hold a deeper understanding, love and appreciation for our bat buddies and the great benefits that come with living in harmony with our friends of the night sky!
Why Own a bat house? Why go to all the trouble to buy a bat house, find a good spot to mount it, take the few minutes every season to do light maintenance on the bat house? What is in it for you?! Besides looking cool and being a great conversational piece during your back yard BBQ party's, owning a successful bat house will bring you many benefits you many not have thought about before today.

Bats are an invaluable natural resource. It is unfortunate that from years of unfounded human fear and persecution, the bat population has taken a significant downturn. In the last 50 years the bats natural habitat has been compromised by the increase in urban living, by taking away their homes and poisoning their food and water source with the overuse of urban and agricultural pesticides.

We have seen a rapid decline in the North American bat population and now it is time to fight back. YOU are doing bats a huge service by hanging just one bat house. With a little education, understanding and compassion we can help to bring balance back to our local ecosystem. You will greatly benefit from the kind act of investing in a small piece of Bat Real Estate, as once bats occupy your bat house they will begin to eat the pesky bugs that infest your lawn and neighborhood! As you may have heard, the average small bat eats around 600 bugs per hour!

The Two Chamber Redwood Bat Hotel that we make houses an average of 40 bats. That's 24,000 bugs per hour on average! Installing a bat house would consequently require less and less toxic pesticide use, ending the vicious cycle of decreasing the bat population. In return you can safely save money by no longer needing to use chemical sprays and insect repellents!

Although I will often refer to the North American species of bat, if you plan on mounting your bat house in a different region, you will find that many facts in this blog will still apply. I encourage you to research the needs of your local bat species. All bat species however, prefer their home to be warm, dry, well ventilated and clean. Our bat homes have been successfully mounted not only in Canada and the United States but throughout Europe as well!

If you are an avid gardener or farmer you will love knowing that bats not only eat the insects that eat your flowers and tomatoes, they also help to pollinate your plants! If you have fruit trees bats are especially helpful in aiding the germination process by traveling from tree to tree, much like bees do, carrying with them the pollen from the previous plants.

So, as you can see, the small yet significant part you play will, over time, have a great impact on your local ecosystem. In addition, studies have shown that the same bat colony will return to your bat house year after year, so you will have FREE pest control for years to come!

For more information or to order a Bat House please visit Laughingbat.com!

Now, lets just get the bats IN your bat house, shall we? Stay tuned for great all natural bat attraction tips & tricks!