How to Build a Bat House in Your Backyard

Building a backyard bat house is fun, easy and ecological. Bats eat mosquitoes, moths and other insects and pollinate some flowers. Encourage them to populate your yard by building a bat house out of materials you have at hand, then watch them fly out at dusk to hunt for food.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Scrap cedar or exterior plywood (not treated)
• Wood screws
• Caulking
• Dark stain or paint
• Old pantyhose or netting
• Staple gun
• Hammer and large nail

1. Screw together scrap wood pieces to make two walls 24 inches high and 13 inches wide. Screw together two side walls 24 inches high and 3 inches wide.

2. Hammer holes in the large walls about 6 inches from the bottom of the house using the large nail. These allow air to circulate within the house.

3. Staple pantyhose material to the wider walls, reinforcing about every 2 inches up the sides of the house. The material provides a perch from which bats can hang in the house.

4. Assemble the four sides by screwing them together, then caulking. Next, lay the walls aside while you build the roof. Assemble two roof pieces 8 inches by 15 inches. Screw together at a 30-degree angle, then screw and caulk to walls.

5. Paint the outside of the house a dark color. Nail the house 15 to 20 feet from the ground on a tree, pole or house. The opening in the bottom is the door for bats, who fly in to sleep during the day.

Tips & Warnings

• Equip your child with binoculars to observe wildlife in your trees.

Resources

• Learn more about bats from Bat Conservation International.
• The Organization for Bat Conservation hosts bat festivals.

[cappyhamper]

on 7/25/2009 Thank you for a timely, extremely informative article. I'll be putting my husband and our 10-year-old grandson to work right away!