weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 15, 2017 1:23:10 GMT -5
Adorable!
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tractor
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Post by tractor on Aug 15, 2017 7:02:30 GMT -5
I live in a log house, bats are a fact of life. Last night I just opened the one window in my bedroom that doesn't have a screen (on purpose) and he eventually left. With all that bats we have, you would think they could at least clean up a few of the cobwebs.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Aug 17, 2017 13:45:55 GMT -5
We've had problems with rats all summer -- in the yard, not the house thank god or I'd have to burn it down. With a chicken coop and refusal to use rat poison I couldn't get anyone to come out. I managed to get their population down just by reducing access to the coop and food. I started setting traps but have been out of town a lot and haven't caught any yet. Yesterday we pulled up just in time to see a coyote dragging off one of our chickens and when we went in back found that 4 of the 5 chickens were killed. So I'm thinking the rat problem will continue to subside. Although now I have to figure out what to do with 1 lone chicken who can't leave the coop.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Aug 17, 2017 17:50:01 GMT -5
I'm told there are bats around here that are out at night.
I may live in a town of 2000, but there is a corn field in town and one across the street.
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Post by empress of self-improvement on Aug 17, 2017 19:59:29 GMT -5
My favorite bat memory is waaaaaay back in '78-79 or so. My dad used to work for the YCC in NH and I was staying at the camp that night and we were in the mess hall and someone brought in a bat in a jar that had flown into the office and parked itself on the ceiling. It was kinda pissed at being stuffed in a jar but they were showing it to us and I yelled out it looked like my sister. That was a lot of elbows and slaps I got. Jeez. I was 6-7, give me a break. I thought it was cute. My sister, not so much.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2017 20:13:00 GMT -5
I'm so glad to find cool folks who love bats and spiders and snakes. Many nights I sit on my deck and watch bats swooping in to eradicate the mosquitoes, but I keep my attic securely screened against them and the possums and raccoons. I don't encourage spiders inside but tolerate them when they arrive, assuming they aren't black widows. Outside, I avoid but don't freak out. As an outdoor person and gardener I've had many spider bites and think I've built up an immunity over the decades. I respect snakes and admire their beauty while acknowledging the venom potential of some. Last year I met a beautiful ball python which had, sadly, been so injured by a freaked out neighbor that she had to be euthanized. If I encounter a copperhead with any hope of safe capture and release into an uninhabited area, I do.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 17, 2017 23:07:46 GMT -5
I'm so glad to find cool folks who love bats and spiders and snakes. Many nights I sit on my deck and watch bats swooping in to eradicate the mosquitoes, but I keep my attic securely screened against them and the possums and raccoons. I don't encourage spiders inside but tolerate them when they arrive, assuming they aren't black widows. Outside, I avoid but don't freak out. As an outdoor person and gardener I've had many spider bites and think I've built up an immunity over the decades. I respect snakes and admire their beauty while acknowledging the venom potential of some. Last year I met a beautiful ball python which had, sadly, been so injured by a freaked out neighbor that she had to be euthanized. If I encounter a copperhead with any hope of safe capture and release into an uninhabited area, I do. I hope you meant the nasty neighbor.
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olderburgher
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Post by olderburgher on Aug 18, 2017 13:36:51 GMT -5
We have had bats but sadly do not anymore as there is a disease killing them off. They need protection from humans and a cure for this disease as they are our insect eliminators. Now the voles add field mice (and occasional chipmunks) are another story and can be a pest. So can the squirrels. The bears so far are not. They'll eat our bird seed and destroy the bird feeders while doing so but other than past trips on to our deck they haven't bothered us.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 18, 2017 15:16:23 GMT -5
We've had more than our usual share of critters lately. A set of fox kits kept trying to move into the crawl space. Usually it is groundhogs digging their way into that particular spot, so we have a live trap we set up there frequently, but we kept catching the foxes. We eliminate the groundhogs, but the foxes we tried to encourage to move elsewhere.
One day when DS5 and I came home, we heard sounds like a dog whining or crying. There was a young fisher in the basement. No idea how it got in. DH had to go down thru the interior basement door to unlatch the walkout doors to let it escape.
We came home another evening to find a mama raccoon caught in our trap, and she'd given birth there. DH was softhearted and let them go. Mama abandoned the baby, and got herself trapped again the next day, and gave birth again! Neither baby lasted long, but one did wander off to another yard for a few days.
We've had an owl get itself into our wood burning stove (cold). DH used a towel to take it outside to release it. Usually starlings just get stuck in the chimney proper (not all the way into the interior stove pipes) - they are easy to release via the chimney clean out door on the front porch.
DD3's cat nearly caught a bat that somehow got in the house; we couldn't figure out what the cat was launching himself at, then we thought it was a bird. I think the cat cornered a bird one time, too. We had to cage the cat to convince the bird to come out from under a cabinet and escape thru an opened window. Don't remember who released the bat, probably DH.
Years ago a squirrel got inside our bedroom at night. DH had moved the outdoor faucet, leaving a hole he hadn't yet patched hidden in a closet area. Of course, he wasn't home when the critter got in, and I had a young baby in my room to boot. I got a flashlight and used it to shoo the critter back the way it came in, and blocked the hole as best I could in the middle of the night. Don't think I let myself fall asleep that night.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 18, 2017 18:36:08 GMT -5
Can you put a screen on the pipe so they don't get in?
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Aug 19, 2017 9:33:41 GMT -5
Can you put a screen on the pipe so they don't get in? We'd need something at the top of the masonry chimney, to keep birds out of both areas. The pipe is just a short run thru the wall into the house. Installing a screen at that point might trap ash/etc. Not sure how we'd get up there safely now that we have a slippery metal roof.
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dee27
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Post by dee27 on Aug 19, 2017 14:08:13 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2017 17:57:26 GMT -5
I'm so glad to find cool folks who love bats and spiders and snakes. Many nights I sit on my deck and watch bats swooping in to eradicate the mosquitoes, but I keep my attic securely screened against them and the possums and raccoons. I don't encourage spiders inside but tolerate them when they arrive, assuming they aren't black widows. Outside, I avoid but don't freak out. As an outdoor person and gardener I've had many spider bites and think I've built up an immunity over the decades. I respect snakes and admire their beauty while acknowledging the venom potential of some. Last year I met a beautiful ball python which had, sadly, been so injured by a freaked out neighbor that she had to be euthanized. If I encounter a copperhead with any hope of safe capture and release into an uninhabited area, I do. I hope you meant the nasty neighbor. Unfortunately it was the snake that died
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 19, 2017 18:03:28 GMT -5
I'm so glad to find cool folks who love bats and spiders and snakes. Many nights I sit on my deck and watch bats swooping in to eradicate the mosquitoes, but I keep my attic securely screened against them and the possums and raccoons. I don't encourage spiders inside but tolerate them when they arrive, assuming they aren't black widows. Outside, I avoid but don't freak out. As an outdoor person and gardener I've had many spider bites and think I've built up an immunity over the decades. I respect snakes and admire their beauty while acknowledging the venom potential of some. Last year I met a beautiful ball python which had, sadly, been so injured by a freaked out neighbor that she had to be euthanized. If I encounter a copperhead with any hope of safe capture and release into an uninhabited area, I do. Unless you live in sub-Saharan Africa, what was a ball python doing outside roaming about?
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Anne_in_VA
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Post by Anne_in_VA on Aug 19, 2017 18:05:30 GMT -5
Someone decided they didn't want it anymore and released it probably.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 19, 2017 18:16:45 GMT -5
I'm told there are bats around here that are out at night. I may live in a town of 2000, but there is a corn field in town and one across the street. Have you seen these children around those corn fields as of late?
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 19, 2017 18:23:43 GMT -5
Someone decided they didn't want it anymore and released it probably. I figured as much. These idiots have no business owning snakes as pets. Same problem down in the Everglades-idiot pet snake owners release Burmese pythons into the everglades because they can no longer handle the snakes. Burmese pythons multiply like rabbits and are decimating the indigenous wlidlife there.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Aug 19, 2017 18:34:52 GMT -5
Those children of the corn scare me!
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Aug 20, 2017 10:06:19 GMT -5
No!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2017 16:37:42 GMT -5
Someone decided they didn't want it anymore and released it probably. Exactly! The snake expert that came for it said it showed marks of burns from a heat lamp in a cage. So, so sad.
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muttleynfelix
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Post by muttleynfelix on Aug 22, 2017 9:11:39 GMT -5
My parents literally had bats in the belfry. They bought an old Church and converted it to an office. There were bats that lived in the belfry and part of my job was to vaccum up the bat droppings. When I left for college, my dad rented a cherry picker and sealed up a lot of the openings to keep them out. They kept the office after my dad went to work for another company while I was in college (it was short lived). They would use it for meetings on a project in that town. A few bat still lived in the place and my dad had a meeting in the office and it was running long and a bat showed up. My dad's boss flipped out and said meeting over.
After that, my dad wanted to have a trap door in the conference room and whenever a meeting ran long, he wanted to open the door and let the bat out. (He didnt. Instead he quit and went back to work for himself).
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Sept 3, 2017 8:41:04 GMT -5
When nephew was here yesterday, he said he had discovered a nest of bats in his living room.
His house was built in 1860 and has sort of been updated. Nephew had to upgrade electricity to put in a dishwasher. Lots of things need work. The fireplace was full of birds nests, but he got them out last fall.
Now he has bats
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8 Bit WWBG
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Post by 8 Bit WWBG on Sept 5, 2017 9:25:41 GMT -5
Nah, you got this all wrong.
Step 1: Take the $1,700 and use it to produce a series of "Bats are our Friends" informational videos. These should tout all the benefits that these creatures provide, and how lucky one is to have them around.
Step 2: RAISE the rent on your cabin, because bats.
Step 3: Profit.
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