If you hang up a bat box correctly, you can look forward to lots of visits from the beneficial insects. Important criteria are hanging height, location, direction and fastening. The five most frequently asked questions about installing bat boxes receive a comprehensible answer here.
How and where do you hang a bat box?
To properly hang a bat box, it should be at least 2 m high (ideally 5-10 m), in a quiet, partially shaded location, protected from wind and rain. Make sure you have a clear approach path and the optimal direction from southeast to northwest.
How high does a bat box have to hang?
When going on a trip, bats first have to let themselves fall a little. The sociable bats like to swarm in front of their house for a while before they go on their nightly hunt for insects together. The hanging height should take these habits into account. How to do it right:
- Hang the bat box at least 2 m high, ideally 5 to 10 m
- Free approach path without annoying branches and twigs
- Rule of thumb for free space: 1 m in front of the entrance hole, 2 m to each side and downwards
Bats and birds suffer from a massive housing shortage. Properly hung bat roosts are highly competitive. To reduce competition, please hang several bat boxes and birdhouses at different heights.
Where can you hang bat boxes?
If bats had a say, you would advocate a bat box in a quiet, partially shaded location protected from wind and rain, far away from artificial light sources. According to observations by bat experts, these places are ideal in the house and in the garden:
- On trees in the garden, park or forest (favorable: side of the road, clearing, slope, bank area)
- On house facades (cheap: in building corners, under a canopy)
- On bridges, sheds, silos, high-rise buildings
- Do not hang above window, balcony, house entrance, seat
When choosing a location, please take into account that you can carry out visual inspections from the ground.
Which direction is correct?
Each species of bat has its own particular climatic preferences. For this reason there are different variants for the alignment:
- Optimal orientation: southeast to northwest
- Alternative option: northwest to east
- Rule of thumb: bright, neither in full sun nor in full shade
There should be no cold wind whistling through the entrance to the bat box. Drafts are dangerous for these delicate bats.
How do you hang a bat box?
A bat box must not wobble. Either the residents don't move in at all, or the unstable box becomes a death trap. For box models for house facades, the appropriate fastening material is usually included in the scope of delivery.
When hanging a bat box on the tree, please use covered wire and stainless screws or nails. A tree should not suffer from bark injuries if it is chosen as a refuge for bats.
Is my bat box inhabited?
That is the exciting question after all efforts to protect bats in a species-appropriate manner. There is an unmistakable indication of the presence of the flying acrobats in the bat box: bat droppings. Look for the excrement on the ground. Bat droppings are dark brown, 3-10 mm long, dry, shiny and odorless.
Tip
In the natural garden, bats and birds maintain a peaceful neighborhood when the nesting boxes are not in each other's enclosure. Animal welfare experts recommend a minimum distance of 5 meters between the bat box and the bird house. In the large garden there can be a distance of up to 10 meters between the nesting aids for different animal species.
