Big daddy bat!

Colin

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Nov 14, 2002
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yeah it's me... playing dad to three baby bats...

In the UK all bats are strictly protected and three orphans were recently handed over to be hand reared. The parents had been killed by a person who illegally blocked up a roost but was reported by a member of the public and it was investigated... court proceedings are to follow.

Anyway, here's some pics of the babies (2 of them) and I'll post progress on them as i go along, all three are feeding well on a special milk lapped off an artist's paint brush. (the milk is for insectivores, baby hedgehogs do well on this too)

The name for this species is Pipistrellus pipistrellus... AKA pips
 
It's actually part of my job as a countryside ranger to look after them and right now they are in a small plastic tank with lots of scrunched up papers and kept at 25degC... they are too young to fly yet so don't need much room

:smile:
 
AHHHHH.... How cute Colin! They look like the species we call the brown bat over here in the states. A paint brush??? Never heard of using that before!!!

Good luck with them!

Carol
 
They are insectivores... i have half weaned the bigegst one over the weekend.. th eothers still only want milk... bugs are too tough so far :smile:
 
So has any one ever kept a bat as a pet? Bats were actually my first obsession, before octos :roll: (but please don't tell my octo that, he may be offended.) The brown bat is very common in Pennsylvania (USA) and there is an old church close by that has about 20k of them that come out to eat every night, so I've had a good bit of contact with them, but never heard of anyone keeping one as a pet. Of course, I'm the only one I know that has on octopus to, so who knows. Any way, what would they be kept in, and what kind of care would they need?
 
You're in good company - my sister ('flaggermus' on TONMO, which means 'bat' in Norwegian) is about as bat-crazy (guess I could just say she's bats :wink:) as I am ceph-addicted. For her senior project she helped out the local bat-rehabilitator in Omaha and we had a resident population of brown bats in the basement, which she fed live mealworms on a regular basis. That's dedication for you.
I've also rescued bat babies... they're ALMOST as cute as squid babies...

:smile:
 
Tintenfisch said:
they're ALMOST as cute as squid babies...

of course cuteness is quite subjective.... personally id give the edge to the mammals but when it comes to interest quotient, cephs easily make up the huge deficit.... of course if winged rats :smile: were my thing, id be at bama.com (BAt Maniacs Anonymous - that is if crimson tide fans havent already taken the url [which id be astounded if they hadnt] )

of course if you cross the two, all i can say is
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

:cthulhu: :heart: :beer:
 
hi Octavian...

As its part of my work the bats are going to be released once they can be so wont be kept as pets. Im sure they would make lousy pets as they would require an area big enough to fly in and are noisey and not least of all, very messy. Only one of them is flying so far and that's enough for me!!!! I would also be concerend about them injuring themselves.

I once received 4 egyptian fruitbats that were being kept in a guys house, they had free reign in there in you wouldn'ty beleive the smell/mess!!!

So the biggest one is now totally weaned, the 2nd one is almost there and wee baby is getting bigger but still behind (it was just a pink sausage early on tho!)

So what happens next? Well, once they are weaned...we have a thing kinda like a poly tunnel they use as a green house... Its about 40 feet long by 10 wide and about 6 feet high (ish) with netting to allow bugs through which are attracted by UV lights in the night... they will be moved onto there where the recovering adults are and learn to fly... then eventually the tunnel will be opened and they can leave the tunnel or return as they want to... many bat boxes have been added to surrounding trees.

Lastly, and this certainly applies in the UK, it is 100% illegal to own, buy, sell, trap, handle, disturb, disturb the roost (even if empty!) of bats!!! Any species at any time is highly protected by the law in the UK. Only liscenced bat handlers can do so and also a rabies vacination is required.

On a lighter note... I can post some pics real soon :smile:
 

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