It’s Big Brown Bat Maternity Season in Lexington KY
It’s July 3rd, 2024 here in Lexington KY and it’s smack in the middle of maternity season for our Big Brown Bats. In our wildlife removal work we deal with and talk bats and bat exclusions a lot, but July 4th always marks both a day to celebrate, and a day that come July 5th will be the catalyst for a significant uptick in calls about bats in the attic. It’s only an educated guess or hypothesis, but I believe the firework sounds disturb them markedly.
Big Brown Bats are very common in our area and now dwell primarily in man-made structures. It’s probable that there are more Big Brown Bats now than pre-colonial times in North America as they have adapted so well to the human-dominated landscape and the habitat we create. Unfortunately this comes to the dismay of those who end up unwillingly hosting a bat colony in their attic, or other portions of their home or property. All of our homes and properties are very susceptible to bat intrusion from the day they’re built. Bats are small, and our homes are covered with vents and construction gaps, even when very well built, that allow bats, mice, and other small animal easy entry; so if you have bats, it’s truly just a matter of unluck.
Bat removal, also called bat exclusion, where we systematically seal bats out of your home or structure is the solution. It’s not a fun expense, we get it, but does have the added value of thoroughly protecting your home against future animal intrusions of other types as well. But, I headlined this post about maternity season… why does that matter? I’ll tell you!
Big Brown Bats give birth to their pups in late May to early June here in central Kentucky. At birth the pups cannot fly. They actually won’t be leaving your home with the adult bats until August when they’ve reached a level of maturity to exit and take their first flights. So this is fun biology, but why does it matter for getting the bat colony out of your house? Because in the process of systematically sealing the colony out of the structure the final step is utilizing a one-way device to allow the bats to exit and not return. If you do this in June/July you’ll allow the adult bats to exit without issue, however, the pups will become isolated in the structure to die. Not good for your home or the bats. It is simply not prudent to complete a bat exclusion in June or July unless it can be professionally determined that you have a bachelor colony rather than a maternity colony; you just wait until August to complete the project for best outcomes. Bat exclusions can absolutely be started any day of the year, we simply don’t complete them with the one-way device process until the proper windows of time. A bat colony dwelling in you home is a lot like an infection of your body. These are living organisms, so just as a doctor prescribes a best course of treatment for an infection, we operate very similarly to avoid awful side effects and potentially dangerous outcomes for our clients.
