For many pests and various nuisance wildlife animals that can pester your home, trapping is a good method wherein you can catch the animal with the least possibility of harming it. In the same manner, trapping is often thought as a good method for catching bats that might have infested your home or building. After all there are all sorts of traps used for catching raccoons, squirrels, rats and other animals. However, bat trapping isn’t actually the best method there is to keep bats away from your property. Later in this article we will discuss why this is the case.
Kinds of Bat Trap
As mentioned earlier using traps aren’t always the best way to take the bats out of your home or property. But if you do decide to use a bat trap in taking bats out of your home or building just to give you a heads up it can be a bit tricky. It is illegal to kill bats so once your trapped them, you have to let it fly back into the wild. Here are two types of bat traps that you can use:
Cage Traps
Cage traps aren’t just used for bats. It is also used to catch other animals such as raccoons and squirrels. Using a cage trap means having to put a tunnel of chicken wire over where the exit points that the bats use. Many consider this a humane way to entrap the bats however this method can still be harmful for the bats in a way that the wires aren’t picked up by the echolocation which the bats of their navigation. As a result, the bats end up flying into the walls of the cage. If you do decide to push through in using this method you have to make sure that you are checking it regularly as this can cause the bats to be dehydrated because they can’t get out to have some food and water.
Glue Traps
Another form of trap is through the use of cardboard or wooden pads which are covered in glue. These are called glue traps which is a method used for other animals as well. Opposite to cage traps, glue traps is a painful way to die because once the animal or in this case, the bat is caught in the tap it won’t be able to move with no access to food or water and will sit there waiting to die.
Exclusion Techniques
Since bats are animals that can fly fast it only leaves a short amount of time to catch it. Only when it is crawling on the wall or other surface is it possible to trap it. This is why a lot of people choose to use a bat trap because it disables the bat to fly around making it easier to catch. However, a lot of people see it as an inhumane way catching bats which can even lead to its death. Also, using these traps only allows catching a few number of bats each time which is very few compared to the thousands of members it has in its colony making bat traps a slow process of taking them out of your property. In lieu with this, it is best to chase out the bats alive from your property instead of trapping it. There are two exclusion methods; bat exclusion funnels and netting.
Exclusion Funnels
If there’s only a small entry and exit hole that the bats use Bat Exclusion Funnels work best. The funnels make the bat crawl out of the hole as per usual passing through the funnel. However, the thick material of the funnels disables the bats from getting back in. You will just have to make sure that the funnels are installed over all of the areas where the bats enter and exit as well as seal all of the entry points to avoid them from coming back it.
Netting
Using netting as an exclusion technique is also another method used by many. It works quite similarly that of exclusion funnels but it’s easier to use. It’s commonly used to exclude bats located in cavity or roof spaces. What you have to do is to pin the net to the walls or roof over the entry point of the bats but you have to leave enough space to crawl out. Just like the funnels, the net need to thick enough to prevent them from coming back in and again the entry and exit point must be immediately sealed once the bats are flushed out to avoid them from coming back in. In purchasing a net, you have to consider the size of the holes in between. Make sure it’s small enough so the wings of the bat do not get entangled.
Final Thought
In overall, it is important to consider carefully how you want to get the bats out of your property. It doesn’t mean that using bat traps are common; it’s okay to use inhuman ways to catch bats. The goal should be to chase the bats away alive and well back into the wildlife.
Go back to the
How to Kill Bats page.
