On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 06:15:22 GMT, Salty Thumb
wrote:


Anybody have experience with these? I thinking of making one of those
gourd houses for purple martins, but I'm worried about, um, potty training.
I heard of the floors of bat caves being litter with bat guano (and its
insect processors). There is a fig tree on the premises, and if you know
figs, you know they will make you want to 'unload'. (I don't know if the
same kind of bats that eat insects eat fruit as well).

-- Salty

Take a look here before building anything.

http://www.purplemartin.org/

Bats, for the most part eat moths and other larger insects. Fruit bats are
nectar feeding. We have a bathouse and the guano falls out and into the bed
below. It's not a problem. If there are bats in your area, chances are they
already visit your property and roost at night or pass through on their way
east, again when they head back home on their way west in the early morning
hours. We have one of the largest urban bat colonies miles from our home and
there are approximately one million bats which emerge every year from that
underpass. They all pass our home every night, stop by, hang out in the live oak
trees and eat large flying insects by the street light. They do not solve
mosquito problems.

If you have an area with ground cover, mosquitoes can and will thrive in there.
There also must be standing water somewhere for them to lay their eggs.