Hey Mike,

Have you done any side by side comparisons or paired tests with and without to help show that adding scent results in enhanced occupancy? Do you feel this is more appealing when they investigate a new house or that it somehow draws them through olfactory senses to a new house?

Know se very successful bat box gurus who get great occupancy but takes time, location, thermal aspects, etc.... Lots of folks try guano but haven't seen anyone put it into a tested analysis to validate.

Just curious, anything that enhances bat box occupancy is a winner in my book,

Justin

When I look for a house, I make sure that it is the right temperature, solid, right color, and comfortable.
If it smells...it can be a problem....especially for my wife.

I have not asked a bat what they like in a home. If you found a product that can satisfy a maternity colony...wow. Cucumber Mellon from bath and body works...was a huge hit in my house. But, I don't have to worry about 100 other opinions.

DaveK, you are so wrong. Funny and right but still wrong.

Perhaps...perhaps not.

It's a lot like saying that CO2 from automobiles is causing global warming. No...wait! It is the volcanic activity under the polar ice pack that is warming the water from below. No....the last comet caused a wobble to the Earth and knocked it off the axis.

Just run an independent study and find out....

Location, Location, Location:

I've seen a number a bat houses installed in different directions, on barns, on trees, and elsewhere. The most intelligent place I've ever seen a bat house installed was over the main entrance to an attic on a farm house, that had housed bats for years.

Now I know that this is not exactly rocket science, but if you were asked to exclude, but not kill, bats at a lake front rental property,( Like we have ) wouldn't it make sense to ask that if, for an additional fee, they would like a bat house?

Don't get me wrong; There are some customers that could put you in traction for months for asking a question like that. Knowing your customer is part of the reason you're in business in the first place.

I'm just saying that their are people that are aware of what is going on in the world and we need to be one those people.

P.S. My wife is one of those who will hospitalize you, just so you know!

Well guys, I do know this. Bats have limited eye sight, and that's why exclusion tubes work. I put a bat house on my house, and in two days I had bats circling the house and when I checked about 5 days later, I had a colony in that house. I believe in my product or I wouldn't be selling it, and my feedback is AWESUM!!!

Bat exclusion tubes work because bats have poor eyesight? And I thought it was because they could not stand the scent of their poo....and they were attracted to the fresh air entering through the poo. lol

Seriously, I think that bat tubes work is because they are creatures of habit. You put it over the hole they are exiting, and they still exit there...because they can.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

I'm assuming Mike was thinking of when they are out and try to return and can't get in?
Though this is based on the device (tube, pvc, pro cone, net, screen, etc...) being placed
in the proper way (angle, length, etc...) so that the bat who has always entered at X spot
is now looking at X spot and the only way in is 12-24" away at the end of the mesh, or
tube, etc...

Bats do not have diminished eyesight though we all know the old "blind as a bat" myth
that every client believes to be true (harvard educated or otherwise). The fact that bats
echolocate is an evolved response to the way they hunt and the prey they hunt.

Lots and lots of science that would go on far beyond the point of this post and so not
worth discussing at present but suffice to say, our North American bats do see and use
vision for certain types of navigation in lieu of echolocation (this is well published).

*****

Back to the bat house attractant, my main question Mike was simply related to the idea
of how this works or at least how you are selling it to work. If as Wink described we place
a bat box right over the old entry point on a colony we are certainly going to have good luck
with getting bats in that artificial house and I know at least a few dozen folks who have done
this multiple times throughout the last several decades just as hobbyist bat box folks.

However, if we have no colony on our house, but we put up two bat boxes and we put
your product on one as described in the video, and we don't put anything on the other and they
are side by side similar color, wood, dimensions, exposure to sunlight, height off the ground, will
we get bats in the attractant box over the other one, and how many times can we replicate this or
do we need to to know that it is the odor versus other factors?

I know it would be science just for science to many, but if you are selling a product I would think
this would be a baseline to really up sell your product if you prove percentage wise with your product
that bats prefer that or find it first.

Bats are so driven by thermal dynamics it is honestly an entire field of study where they are concerned
as a species and of course goes into bat box strategies by hobbyists, biologists, wildlifers of all kinds.

I suppose since we are on trapperman a good analogy is to talk lure and bait, young trappers as I was
20+ years ago often buy everything under the sun as the guy says it will surely draw those critters from
a mile or more off, but then we learn as we go that some species have a "cold nose" and are more visual,
etc....

While I can buy that bats of X species upon arriving at a new cedar box might find their species scent
a cue that it is "safe" or "ok" to setup shop in, ultimately there aren't any North American bats that hunt
by scent, they are completely visual and echolocating, so I'd consider them a "cold" nosed species.

Now to be fair and square here, please know that if you can figure out that this works over a control enough
to pass the test, I know lots of folks who'd want to talk to you and would be buying. Being massively into bat
conservation as my wife and I are, I'd be all over that product if it worked for all the bat box using species in
North America, or even a sample of them.

For now though, I had to ask the questions because I know too many folks have tried and are trying all kinds
of guano rubs and concoctions to get bats to accept houses quicker once they find them or believing they will
find them by smelling them from a distance.

I suppose it is as anything else, if you get enough people to say it works for them or they believe it did, you'll
still have success in selling it. I like proof, just a hang up I have, bought my first belisles 10+ years ago after
seeing the proof they were better than others we were using.

Should also state that I'm not trying to knock you for the idea, I know tons of educated folks who are out smearing
guano on boxes because they hope it will help, so if you have folks that believe it helps and you've seen it help in
your case, there is a market for this.

Would love to see you setup a small study though, even if just in your state with your local bat box species. Lots of
push for bat box programs with WNS raging across the country, should be lots of ways to find suitable partners to
setup with that would allow you to test your product and show proof of results.

Just a thought (or maybe a few),

Best,

Justin

I think timing is a biggie, just as with any animal. If you set a box and spray it down, and all the bats in the area already have a nice place to live, why would it move in to a box? As far as how a bat tube works, go sit on a roof at 4:30 am the day after you do an exclusion. Its the scent they follow, which dissipates before it reaches the actual opening. That is their focus.
I have used this stuff for years, with good results. Its not magic, but it does help. I just never sold any until this year. If someone has time to do all those side by side tests, Ill send you some for free.

Mounting the bat house in very close proximity to the entry/exit point prior to eviction a week or two and smearing a bat call product within the the house and on the landing strip will be a guaranteed inhabitation upon exclusion if the bat house is properly constructed.

We have been doing it for many years with 100% success with this system. Like Paul said it has to be very close to the original entry or your success will drop radically.

Mike,

If you send WCT several bottles, we will have some testing done with it. I'll PM you our shipping address it you need it.

Bob:

You would need to compare with other bat houses using no lure. Also, you would want to use a blank or fake lure where you do not know if it is the real one or not.

You may get similar results without using the call.

Mike,

I've worked with rehabbers and have rehabbed myself and even pallid bats which are larger than any house dwelling bats in
the north you never see their nose move. How would you "see" they are using sense of smell versus vision? Bats make micro calls
even when I'm hand that are nearly in audible without acoustic equipment, so I can't see how someone can see on a bat watch that they are smelling versus seeing and using spatial memory.

It would be like watching me head to a restaurant and saying I smelled it when in reality I saw it from 3 miles away.

Many building entry points still have air flow after or during exclusion, the bats I'm those cases can technically smell their own odor
we would assume all up and down a gapped piece of soffit, yet they focus on the one point as it is habit.

We use other options (screen, net) quite often but have used tubes as well and I've watched bats with my naked eye and with flir for hours attempting re-entry. No way I could see or know that their nose is what is driving their movement while trying to detect entry.

Again for me it's a coyote versus a bobcat. I have a silver haired bat right now for rehab and this along with the others shows that when they lift their head or look around and their mouth ones and therefore nose is raised along with the head they are sending out acoustic signals.

I can see them and the others I've worked with literally from and inch away and their nose is fixed, no "sniffing" movement.

Not saying they can't smell, of course they can, but to the extent they need that for finding a hole they've used 1,000s of times....?

If eyesight was so poor and smell was key guys wouldn't sweat the tubes being a certain length or angle.

Good opportunity from WCT to put this to the test, if it passes a test it would really have some marketability.

Timing though as you mentioned is key, bat boxes erected before spring emergence and return from
migration allows for best sample to be done.

Good comments and thoughts hope this results in testing, as stated without paired no smell versus smell
No one could state it is true factually, it is just a belief, though belief is sold every day to the time of millions and
billions of dollars in lots of our society.

Best,

Justin

WOW Justin! Good info there! I really don't see bats noses move on a roof at 5am from 3 feet away. Its way too small for me. But as a bat excluder guy of 15 years, I will tell you that if you miss anything, the bats will find it. Ill send some to wct and see what they come up with. I know it works for me!

I wholeheartedly agree you can't miss a thing and doing so costs dearly in dollars lost and time and frustration.

Makes you a detailed son of a gun after a couple misses.

Glad your taking WCT up on it, we make and sell a line of innovative bat boxes right now so to temper all my questions and inquisition both the wife and I would be thrilled to have a way other than placement and other aspects of design to enhance our clients success in occupancy rates and times.

If also consider having someone test the material for you in a lab to verify it can't harbor P.d (Pseudogymnascus destructans aka white nose syndrome causing fungus).

That stuff is insanely able to hitchhike and sustain itself on all kinds of things from fur to guano and stone and wood. There are some folks who would likely test it for free for you I can likely get you in touch if when decide to burn that bridge.

I see folks who are hobbyists or wanting a bat colony and often they ask for folks from other states to send some guano and often replies come from WNS areas where any guano has to be considered a potential transfer vector.

With feral hogs fomites (objects that can serve as reservoirs in the environment for disease including virus and bacteria are a major problem and were always a focus of our surveillance work and talks with ranchers and such.

Worth looking at.

Good exchange, looking forward to seeing the trial with WCT!