"Trish Brown" wrote in message
...

So I don't know if cloth bags will work if you have bats. Have you though
of
knitting them out of barbed wire?

David




I reckon you ought to try just one (1) cloth bag, just so we can all
know whether bats can smell and/or gouge their way through cloth. In the
interests of furthering scientific knowledge, you understand...

I have to say, I do have a soft spot for flying foxes, but how
profoundly I do wish they'd stop shitting all over my dog, who is white,
and who heartily dislikes me scraping melted-caramel, sour-smelling
batshit off her back! I can't say I'm that overjoyed about them dropping
the foul stuff on my washing, either. Or the duco of my car. But hey!
Live and let live, I say!

Well I must be a softie too 'cause when the the little bugger couldn't get off
the ground after he was free I went and picked him up again and threw him up
so he could fly off and then return to steal my nectarines the next night.
The prevailing wisdom here is you free them from the net (and this vale of
tears) with a spade.


You should be careful if handling a bat! They can be carriers of a
really nasty disease called Lyssavirus, so make sure you use stout
gloves if you absolutely need to handle one. If you get bitten, it'd
certainly be worth getting it checked out by a doctor. Lyssavirus can be
fatal.


I wore really heavy leather gauntlets and my offsider distracted the patient
by letting him bite on a stick during the operation.

Before I shuddup, can I ask how you plan to make your nets? Will you be
netting the whole tree (some local people have done that, successfully,
it seems), or just the clusters of fruits? I'm interested in how you
plan to construct the net...

The whole tree or row as the case may be. I will make a frame out of bent
polypipe mounted on waterpipe stakes. The net will be pegged over the frame
to the ground. I have seen nets just hung over the tree and it really doesn't
work.

David