Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We seem to have a colony of bats that have made a home in one of our buildings at our school. Really cool little creatures, but now the fun part of exclusion begins. Sorry about the large pic. The close up of the face didn't turn out very good either.

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1,0 snow
1,0 amel
1,0 texas corn
1,0 aney stripe motley
0,1 normal
0,1 charcoal
0,1 motley
1,1 oketee
0,1 tx rat
1,0 diadem
4,5 ball python
1,1 dumerils boa
1,1 columbian red tail boa
1,1 green iguana
1,0 leopard gecko
1,2 dogs
freezer full of mice & rats

Do you know what kind of bat it is? Im doing a project in school with bats and Im finding them almost as interesting as snakes. Thanks.

EP
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Occupants not paying rent:
7 balls
2.1.10 corns(candy cane, creamsicle, ghost, 6 normal, 4 anery )
1 pueblan milk
1 everglades rat
1 cal. king
1 gray band king
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
1 fish
1 mouse
3.3 cats

>>We seem to have a colony of bats that have made a home in one of our buildings at our school. Really cool little creatures, but now the fun part of exclusion begins. Sorry about the large pic. The close up of the face didn't turn out very good either.
>>

I'm probably stating the obvious, but any bat that you can catch is likely to be sick and at least around here there is a high incidence of rabies.

deg

Its a mexican freetail I believe. When you have a colony with several thousand there is going to be a few curious enough to leave the colony to search for food. Usually the younger ones. I have caught three so far. Being it is a school I have taken them to the animal shelter that just so happens to be right next door. The first two tested negative for rabies, should know about this one next week. I would have released this one if it hadn't gotten in the building. From what i know only one half of one percent actually carry rabies, and they are generally very healthy. They are very befecial to have around, just not in my buildings.
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1,0 snow
1,0 amel
1,0 texas corn
1,0 aney stripe motley
0,1 normal
0,1 charcoal
0,1 motley
1,1 oketee
0,1 tx rat
1,0 diadem
4,5 ball python
1,1 dumerils boa
1,1 columbian red tail boa
1,1 green iguana
1,0 leopard gecko
1,2 dogs
freezer full of mice & rats

>>Its a mexican freetail I believe. When you have a colony with several thousand there is going to be a few curious enough to leave the colony to search for food. Usually the younger ones. I have caught three so far. Being it is a school I have taken them to the animal shelter that just so happens to be right next door. The first two tested negative for rabies, should know about this one next week. I would have released this one if it hadn't gotten in the building. From what i know only one half of one percent actually carry rabies, and they are generally very healthy. They are very befecial to have around, just not in my buildings.
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I agree that bats are great to have around. Here in Austin we have what I believe is the largest urban bat colony in the US under the Congress Street bridge, right in the middle of downtown. It's really impressive to see 1.5 million Mexican freetail bats leave the roost at dusk. Quite a tourist attraction actually. There are pictures of this at the bottom of http://www.batcon.org/discover/congress.html But, every year or so we have people who have to be treated for rabies because they handled a rabid bat. I agree that bats in general are fairly healthy. It's just the ones that people are able to catch that tend to be sick.

FYI, Bat Conservation International is located in Austin and their website is http://www.batcon.org/

deg

Just for the record I havent been playing with the bats. They have all been handled with the long grippers that we use to pick up trash. Going through the long process of rabies shots is not something I care to go through. I have lived in Texas all my life including many years in the hill country. Ive been to Austin many times. Watching the bats fly at night is a sight to be seen. I have also seen the bat flights at Carlsbad Carverns. It is an awesome display.
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1.0 snow corn
1.0 anery motley stripe
1.0 amel corn
1.0 kisatchie corn
1.1 oketee corns
0.1 charcoal corn
0.1 normal corn
0.1 normal motley stripe
0.1 tx rat
4.5 ball python
1.1 columbian red tail boas
1.1 dumeril boas
1.1 green iguanas
1.0 leopard geko
1.2 dogs
freezer full of mice and rats

Gotta love the bats . Unfortunately a lot of people have misconceptions about rabies with them because normally people don't come into contact with them when they're healthy(i.e. they only see the sick ones). I'm getting my pre-exposure rabies shots this spring so I can start working with them in the summer and I, for one, can't wait! How are you excluding them? I saw that you caught some, but since their aren't any live tests for rabies, I would imagine you're not having them all tested?

we have hired a company to do the job. They are going to wait a few weeks until the night time temperatures get in to the sixtys. This will ensure that they all will leave the colony at night to feed. After they leave at dusk a team will come in and seal all openings with some sort of copper mesh. They will then place bat enough bat houses to give them some place to go. Then they will pump a foam fungicide in to the areas where they are living to kill anything dangerous including the mites they have left behind. We will have to observe them for a while to watch where they move to. This may be a prolonged process of chasing them from one location to another until they have left our campus. There may be a few stragglers that get trapped in the building that will have to be captured and released.
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1.0 snow corn
1.0 anery motley stripe
1.0 amel corn
1.0 kisatchie corn
1.1 oketee corns
0.1 charcoal corn
0.1 normal corn
0.1 normal motley stripe
0.1 tx rat
4.5 ball python
1.1 columbian red tail boas
1.1 dumeril boas
1.1 green iguanas
1.0 leopard geko
1.2 dogs
freezer full of mice and rats

np
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1,0 snow
1,0 amel
1,0 texas corn
1,0 aney stripe motley
0,1 normal
0,1 charcoal
0,1 motley
1,1 oketee
0,1 tx rat
1,0 diadem
4,5 ball python
1,1 dumerils boa
1,1 columbian red tail boa
1,1 green iguana
1,0 leopard gecko
1,2 dogs
freezer full of mice & rats

That sounds like a good plan. I'm glad to see somebody going at this responsibly. We get dozens of calls every summer at work about how to get rid of them and most of the people are too cheap to hire someone. The only other (but less effective) option is to wait til the babies are grown and then just blast them with lights and music until they leave...then seal the hole up.