Bat Rescue

Living in the woods, we often see a variety of creatures around the house. Deer and wild turkeys are common, foxes and Sasquatch are a little less frequent. About a year ago, we found a small colony of Little Brown Bats living under our front porch roof. The adults really are small - probably smaller than your hand with their wings outstretched. They hang out under the porch by day, and head out towards our pond at dusk. We've had as few as two and as many as 15 show up to sleep over. Actually, sometimes they don't come home at all, and we can only assume they have another roost close by. We don't mind them taking up residence, and really do like the idea that the little guys feel safe at our house.

On Sunday evening, I noticed something laying across the handle of a hedge clipper I'd left on the porch. It was so small, at first it did not register that it could be anything important. But on closer examination, it was a tiny bat pup. It was so young it didn't have hair and its eyes were not open yet. Teresa and I were shocked! The little guy was just over an inch long, and could have been mistaken for a dried up leaf or a scrap of leather.

He had apparently fallen from the colony 10 feet above him, and was lucky to be alive in my opinion. He had climbed up on the trimmer handle and was trying to get some rest.

After a frantic internet search, we found a local bat rehab expert, and we were able to reach her on the phone. She said that the best thing to do would be to try and get the pup back to his mother. I was a little intimidated by the thought of climbing up to be face to face with a dozen bats, but she said that they would ignore me. She also suggested that I make a hammock out of some nylon screen, and place that just below the colony. That would catch any falling pups, and give the little guy a place to rest until his momma came down to get him.

So, we followed her advice, and I placed the little dude in his new hammock just below the colony. He actually wanted to hang on my gloves, so it took a little gentle manipulation to get him into his hammock. As predicted, the bats didn't mind my presence, and didn't react at all when I placed the pup a few inches from them. I doubt many people have been 6" away from a dozen bats. They are amazing creatures!

We checked back an our later, and the pup was still in his hammock. I had done some more reading in the mean time, and was concerned that he wasn't peeping and calling out for his mother. He could have been cold or dehydrated, so we ran to the store for some Pedialyte. From what we found, unless you have a supply of bat milk, the best thing to give bat pups is Pedialyte or goats milk. We decided to go with Pedialyte since we don't have good goat access here.

I crawled back up the ladder, face to face with the colony again, and gave the pup some warm Pedialyte in a tiny eye dropper. At first he didn't want anything to do with it, but after he woke up a little he really went for it. With a few good swallows of warm liquid, he really came to life and wanted to drink as much as he could. At that point he started to make some tiny clicking noises, and the colony started making similar sounds.

With his new found energy, he started to climb up the screen hammock a little bit, looking for more to drink, and probably searching for his mom too. So, I made a little Pedialyte trail up the wall to the colony. The pup followed the trail, drinking the warm liquid as he crawled up.

Once he got close to the group, one bat moved over a little bit and he headed straight for his momma. As soon as he got to her she groomed him a little bit and he started to nurse. It was one of the most amazing sights I've seen in a long time. Within a minute he had climbed up under his mom and all you could see was the tip of his little wing sticking out.

Teresa wondered if there were more pups in the colony, but they were packed together so tightly there was no way to tell... until later that night. About 10 o'clock we came out with a flashlight. The adults were all out flying around, and we found 5 pups up on the wall.

They were all the same size as the little one we rescued, and seemed to be waiting for momma to get back with dinner.

The next morning, they all had left for their other roost. We'll keep watching for them to come back, and look forward to the pups getting bigger.