Hey guys I know there is a ton of pricing info in the archives but I have a call to remove dead bats was wondering what you guys thought would be fair. I'm charging my basic service call fee and then additional charge for bat removal any suggestions ? Thanks !

Service call + $XX/hr. Only way to know you'll make money in this type of situation.

Dead bats? Sounds like you got a call to clean up someone's botched exclusion. Your alarm bells should be ringing. Price just doubled or even tripled.

With David, unless they are dead bats that are dry and in the attic along with guano, freshly dead sounds like a bad exclusion either by the homeowner or a company. (Or roofers or siders or other home construction who blocked them in...)

What's the scoop on how they discovered this issue?

I just removed this one last friday...non profit company cant touch live animals...this one was in bathtub upstairs...normal service fee...took 5 min and i made a profit

These guys came from a tall downtown building over the course of several days during a cold snap.

Overwintering them along with about a dozen others from various species for spring release. Have 8 total
Mexican free-tailed, draining our mealworm colony at a rapid rate!



That bat pic cracks me up with the mouth gape, standard "I'm big and fierce" defense. Even when you are a bigger North American bat species
you still have to worry about everything eating you! When your only defense is to look and sound terrifying by showing your teeth and screeching
folks tend to think you are "aggressive" when in reality you are just being "defensive" of your tiny life.

Even big brown bats we received as pups that were orphaned still mouth gape if you wake them up too quickly. Torpor is something anyone who works
with bats should know about and understand in terms of how to interpret their behavior when you scoop them up or need to catch them with the general
public around. We use the analogy that if it is the middle of the night, you are deeply into REM sleep and someone grabs you, likely you are going to react poorly!

I use a personal story in that my dad's dad my "grampi" had a very quick hand if you woke him up and everyone knew it. Kind sweet guy but his reaction to being
woke up from a deep nap was not a good one!

Bats certainly react poorly when you are trying to "mug" them when they aren't fully awake and ready to escape. Logical defense, but folks misconstrue it.

So the home was a bank foreclosure. Very large home, completely vacant looks like the little guys may have gotten in several months ago. There were five total just laying in different places. I'd assume died of being cold. Did a thorough home inspection, very modern but large mesh on chimneys if assume that's where they came in from. Seller doesn't want anything further done just the removal ! Quick job in and out 😬!

Here was how one of them was found dead !

Thats a great description, I've had houses like this where the mortality was mostly throughout the summer, no one was in the house, especially with a maternity colony, lots of dead pups of various ages often distributed throughout the home layout when folks aren't living there to find them.

It is likely if you asked them some questions, that no one has messed with the dead bats and they've been there a long time. While they can die any time of year from various things, if there are multiple bats and they are nice and dry in my experience they are from summer/fall time.

Easy pickup for you though! Think we were all wondering if you had a situation with heavy odor, fresh dead and that points to something going wrong with exclusion or some sort of home modification (roof/siding, etc..).

Glad it was this scenario, it is likely they have a colony somewhere in the structure at least during the active year.

Thanks for sharing the details!

Justin

Did any of them have white fuzzy crap on their noses?

Under an hour and in an attick/crawl space I charge $300 +/-

HD Have you ever tried feeding Dubia roaches to the bats? Easy to keep a large colony, and one is equivalent to a whole bunch of mealworms. They do not stink either:) I feed them to my Bearded dragon and Chem. They live forever and multiply pretty fast if you keep them at around 86 degrees F.. Keep them in a large plastic bin (preferably dark color with egg crates. They do not climb(never had one escape).

Haven't tried the roaches, the idea of not smelling is a bonus! We actually bought a pretty high end air filter that negates the smell of the mealworm colony which in our case went from one or two plastic drawers to 4 entire sets of drawers all full of either beetles, larva or worms. We went to raising them so we could control the food the worms eat and therefore the nutrition going into any long term education bats. Plus we were having to order more whenever we had a spike in intakes and the cost was increasing quickly.

We've done wax worms once, gave them all away to a friend with tortoises and others after our big brown spit the wax worm back out after one chew. Was pretty priceless, wax worm went up under the cloth, heard him make one chew and then patooey! Out it came!

The good thing for us with mealworms and bats is that we have so many different species of bats in this region and some are very small and eat smaller insect prey, while others are quite large and eat larger prey that we can pull out various life stages of worm development and have food no matter the time.

Right now the free-tailed bats (8 in all) are wiping out medium sized mealworms like a bunch of hot dog eaters at a county fair competition! Fellas can eat!

We've tried crickets as well, even our pallid bats which eat scorpions and large centipedes here natively preferred the mealworms. Just tried a cricket with one of them last week, she took one bite and just paused until I pulled it back and replaced with a mealworm.

Bats are fascinating for a variety of reasons just biologically and behaviorally. We used to use a local rehabber who became a good friend for any downed or injured that needed aid, but when she moved we became the go to in this area which has been great, we've learned a lot and have far more knowledge of their behavior than we gain by our short inspections in attics or homes and other work.

Feel fortunate to have the opportunity and good colleagues including vets who assist with things that require more special work.

Received a call about a silver-haired bat this morning roosting on a downtown porch overhang. Nothing that raises too much concern depending on the species but we always go look anyway. In this case, female bat, from a few feet away looks fine, up close on the ladder can see one eye is either swollen shut or missing, rip in ear and wing characteristic of bird attack (most injuries we get are from cats) and a few other issues including very swollen muzzle.

Bat ate like a starved animal, drank massive amounts and would have kept going if we didn't cut her off to allow some time between digesting to avoid bloat, etc...

After two feedings and some hands on and pain meds, antibiotics, bat already displays a contentment buzz which shows good things to come.

Again, not for everyone, but wife and I are both beyond into this and it complements our exclusion work, our bat survey work, outreach and teaching, etc... on bats.

**

Back to the roaches, it isn't uncommon for a mealworm or beetle to be found cruising around the house somewhere, wife doesn't think twice. I'm not sure she'd have the
same love for the roaches!

Ha!

Justin

Nutritional Value of Insects
Mealworm:
Moisture - 59%
Protein - 10%
Calcium - 3.28mg/100g
Fat - 13%

VS
Dubia Roach:
Moisture - 61%
Protein - 36%
Calcium - 20mg/100g
Fat - 7%

Roaches gut-load better also:)
Look into it plenty of info on the web.
I have tried my hand at raising super worms (stink), crickets(stink the most, die fast), silk worms (spotty at best to keep well stocked), and horn worms ( cost more to feed than they are worth)but they are like candy to critters. Have to nearly become an entomologist to keep Chameleons properly:)

I hear ya on the entomology!

Totally get the nutrition aspect, getting bats to get over the "mouth feel" is the sticking point. In house we feed organic veggies and a mealworm medium mix that is built for bats by folks who have a few decades of experience so we rely heavily on that. Would like to inject variety as it is good for the nutrition aspect but tricky as you say so many of the options are hard to raise for one reason or another.

Moisture is tough to maintain here during summer let alone winter, that and temp slow production a lot it seems.

If death occurred since January, the bats had White Nose Syndrome and woke up early from their hibernation. With the fungus they use up their winter stores faster, wake up earlier and head out looking to eat. I found them laying on snow a couple years back.