On 9/13/07, Laree Shulman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We would like to put up a bat house/houses to combat the flying insect > population around here. Is there any need to worry about bat > droppings underneath the houses/s if they are in your pasture? I > can't find out anything about that question specifically on the > internet.
We have a hefty colony of bats in our bat house, and they leave hefty piles of little doodoos. They also hang out in the eaves of the house here and there, and leave little poopies there too. We've counted about 25 bats in the one house--it's fun to sit w/ a chair in the evenings and watch them swoop out one by one for the night. Where the bat house is, it doesn't matter if there's poop there. Under the eaves, on the deck, I just sweep them off every so often. The poo pile under the house is about 1 ft. by 3 inches, so if you're concerned about the horses being exposed, you could fence that area off w/ a temporary fence for the season. Better yet, can you situated the houses behind your barn or somewhere where the horses don't have access? More b/c of the potential for a horse to sniff a sick bat that might be on the ground near the house, having fallen out, and the horse gets bitten and exposed to rabies. You could ask your vet about it too. I doubt that the horses could pick up any disease from bats, it seems that *most* diseases tend to be species-specific. In any case, the toll that they take on the bug population outweighs any risk from having poo on the ground. Robyn S
