Bats

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
Looking for some advice. My house is really close to a slow moving almost stagnent creek. The mosquitos are really bad. Would constructing a few bat houses help? Any possible opinions on bat house assembly? Any other suggestioms to keep the mosquitos down?
 
Martin houses... gourds are cool, and they destroy squeeters
 
I got a couple of el cheapo bat houses from a flea mkt. Said it would take up to two years for the bats to move in so i left them in the shop for 2 years so the would still look new when the bats move in.

I have a few bats around the house but haven't seen any in the houses.
 
I put one up, followed all the guidelines. Been empty for 4 years. Weird thing is that until I put it up, we had lots of bats here. Haven't seen a single one since it's been up.
 
Supposedly lemon grass. Get rid of standing water and dead decaying material. I live next to a small flowing Creek and they aren't too bad here.
 
Mosquito repellent plants are basically just nice warm fuzzy thoughts. For your slow moving creek, the best thing to do is to speed it up. Go out there with a shovel and wherever it's puddling, trench it to move along. If a rock is in the way, move it, just get the water moving. You would be surprized at how easy it is to dry it up some. If the woods are thick in wet leaves try to blow them around to higher ground. If your gutters are full, that's one of the best breeding grounds for them.
A good back pack sprayer with Cross Check (SiteOne Landscape) insecticide is your best bet to reduce the population. After mowing the grass, walk and spray all parts of your property. especially in, around, and under the shrubs. Spray those woods and the creek area. Use the adjustable tip on the sprayer and try to get the spray into the gutters (tip: don't let the spray fall back down into your face).
Try this and do it weekly and let me know how it works in a month. This is better than what many of the mosquito companies do IF you spray it liberally.
Also, Purple Martins can eat their weight in food a couple times a day too so get you some martin houses.
 
If you clear the blockages in the creek after it rains, the water will do the work for you. Just be careful if it rains too much.
 
go get a few beta fish and put in different places of the slow moving stream. they will eat larva and survive in stagnant water.

or dump a cup or two of bleach in the water. Will kill the larva. Then plant some citronella for the summer.
 
We have a pond in the back yard and a spill way in and out...getting rid of mosquitoes is darn near impossible.
A former neighbor kept purple martins because he thought they were cool. He moved and took his bird houses...mosquitoes are now a problem when they never really were more than an occasional nusiance before.

So far my Martin houses havent been as succsseful, mainly because the best location for them is on his property
 
Ron said:
So far my Martin houses havent been as succsseful, mainly because the best location for them is on his property
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Martin houses sound like a bunch of work. All the same, I wish you would have brought that up a couple of months ago, so that I had time to put some up before they migrated back into town. I could totally have conned @trailhugger into managing the colony for me.
 
Martin houses really only work well in open spaces. If you don't have a large open space, Martin houses will generally be of no use as they won't take. And it usually takes a little while for them to take.

But if you do get some, they do sound beautiful when they sing. :)
 
Frogs. I have a pond in the back yard between the bass and frogs I hardly see any mosquitos

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk
 
rockcity said:
Martin houses really only work well in open spaces. If you don't have a large open space, Martin houses will generally be of no use as they won't take.
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I hope you're not talking about my house. Otherwise, you were drunker than I thought you were...
 
We've never had good luck with them except in wide open spaces in a field. Same with the rest of our locals. Maybe your martins are drunk?
You do have a fairly open yard and decent for martins.


I mean, when you drive by a farm with gourd houses hanging up in the open, it's for the martins. You typically don't see them near the house or woods. They will take but it takes time and an abundance of martins
 
They don't like being near trees b/c of predators.
 
Not a fan of the insecticide idea. Not saying it would, but, so much use of these things are killing the bee populations. The martin houses are a great idea, and has been tried and tested for 100's of years.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned, unless I missed it, is the propane trap thing, I know I have read many places where they caught, trapped millions in a single night. Tested at our military bases on east coast.
Also if you can open the creek up and get it flowing, that will cure a lot. But you have to look around for ANY place water stands. Even a cup size pool of water can breed hundreds and just days.
 
rockcity said:
We've never had good luck with them except in wide open spaces in a field. Same with the rest of our locals. Maybe your martins are drunk?
You do have a fairly open yard and decent for martins.


I mean, when you drive by a farm with gourd houses hanging up in the open, it's for the martins. You typically don't see them near the house or woods. They will take but it takes time and an abundance of martins
Click to expand...


I know martins dont fly around with tape measures but,....

The extension guys we talked to trying to set ours up actually said the ideal is nothing within 40' and something within 120' in every direction. The aforementioned ex neighbor had his about 35' from the house and it stayed full. We had ours on the middle of the dam of our pond (you've been here for reference) and they would get near it. after 2 years I took it down....Ok I lied a big storm took it down and I didnt bother rebuilding.
 
I'd love to have some to keep the bugs down here but I just don't have the open space for it. If my damn back neighbor would cut down his half dead and rotten pine that's hanging onto my property, id have a great spot for some gourd houses with the field behind the house and our neighborhood's relative open design. :)
 
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