Topic: How long does it take for bats to rear their young

[Baccy Man]

One of my neighbours had bats move into his roof about a month ago directly above his bedroom. Problem is his roof goes slate/2" insulation/1/4" thick wood cladding, there is no loftspace so there is an awful lot of noise coming through & to make it worse he put the cladding on himself (very badly) and it is full of gaps so there are bat droppings deposited all over his bedroom carpet daily. He has had problems sleeping since they moved in & wants to know how long it will be until they go so he can get a proper nights sleep again.
Removing the bats is not really an option as they are a protected species & will be raisng young at this time of year. I can find lots of references to bats raising young in spring/summer but nothing that actually says when they will move on again.

[ceres]

Having found somewhere to roost, they may not move on again.  And you can't force them to move by blocking up entry points either.  His best course of action is to contact his local Natural England office who issue the licences for work involving bats or the Bat Conservation Trust.  They'll probably send someone round to look at the problem.  I'd hope they'd be sympathetic to his situation.

Natural England Wildlife Management and Licensing Service
Burghill Road
Westbury-on-Trym Bristol,
BS10 6NJ
Tel: 0845 6014523
e-mail: wildlife@naturalengland.org.uk
web: http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/conservation/wildlife-management-licensing/default.htm

Natural England
1 East Parade Sheffield, S1 2ET
Enquiry Service: 0845 600 3078
e-mail: enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk web: www.naturalengland.org.uk

Bat Conservation Trust
15 Cloisters House
8 Battersea Park Road
London, SW8 4BG
National Bat Helpline: 0845 1300 228
e-mail: enquiries@bats.org.uk web: www.bats.org.uk

[Baccy Man]

Natural England doesn't cover the area I emailed the Countryside Council for Wales a couple of weeks ago on his behalf but haven't had a response yet.

[ceres]

Call the BCT Helpline?  0845 1300 228

[jjt]

English Nature say work should only be done between October and March (inclusive), and careful checks done anyway. I get bats in the roof, I can't exactly remember but I think they're mostly gone about end of June. One ended up in the bath last year. They're pregnant for 6-9 weeks and suckle for 4-5. After this they split up to different roosts. I'd sleep downstairs and sort something in the winter.

[theothermarg]

just been to a place called Woodchester Mansion which is large unfinished house
in one of the upstairs rooms they have CCtv on the horseshoe bats in the attic
it seems on cold springs bats can delay the births but if babies are born late july they won,t get fat reserves and will die in hibernation (sounds like hedgehogs)
the bats look nice and fat so they are keeping their fingers crossed, they do have heaters up there to help. they also have cattle in the grounds to encourage insects and of course no insectacids are allowed
marg