Nature Boy outdid himself this time!

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Hubby is known in the family as Nature Boy because of his habit of corralling stray animals, of all shapes and sizes. In our nine year marriage, he's brought home several dogs and cats, a California King Snake, a woodpecker with a broken wing, and a giant turtle. He almost brought home a wild turkey, but he got smart and didn't.

Today, though, I am not amused. He came home with a Mexican free-tailed bat. He said it was on the concrete and was cold, so he brought it home to warm up. It's residing in an empty 35 lb. cat litter bucket, with paper towels and some twigs, and it's sitting in my living room. Once it warms up, he's going to give it water with an eyedropper.

He also called The Bat Lady at the zoo, and she's going to come pick it up tomorrow morning. I told him it needed to go to work with him. I can't believe I have a bat in my living room.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
He should NOT touch the thing, just leave it where it is until they pick it up! It was not 'normal' for it to be just laying there on the concrete - it could be sick.

Our vet told me once that bats can very easily carry rabies. And they are very dangerous when they have rabies because they are the only animal that can contract it and not DIE themselves within a short time. Any other animal that gets it will sicken and die very quickly. But bats can just go on and on infecting other animals (and people) with rabies, being sort of a 'carrier'. No way would I take my chances with any kind of bat!
 

everywoman

Well-Known Member
Yes, watch out for rabies. When we were studying Their Eyes Were Watching God, my students were interested in finding out more about rabies---we did an online search and a young girl was bitten by a bat and had contracted rabies.....please be careful
 

susiestar

Roll With It
There are often Bat Ladies in many areas. Vets can help you find them.

while I was pg with Jessamess, I came across a bunch of teens poking at a bat. It was daylight, so I was pretty sure something was wrong. And I was already on leave for maternity so I didn't want to touch it. But I sure as sugar wasn't going to allow these hoodlums to torment it. I chased them off (a loud pregnant woman telling you that you WILL go and you WILL not torment this creature, period, seemed to work, LOL). Then I got a vet on the phone who said that bats can't bite through somehting thick, so if I covered it with a washcloth and picked it up I would be safe. I got 3 washcloths, the brown paper bag the vet recommended, and a maintenance man who had the sad luck to be walking past. It didn't move much at all, and I worried ALL day until husband got home with the car.

Then I took it to a vet who knew a Bat Lady. The vet said it was just a very young teenage bat, showed NO signs of illness, andthey would watch it and then move it to a large wooded park after they were sure it was healthy.

It is fairly common for "teenage" bats to be out past bedtime, get confused and be unable to find their way home. REally made difficult child interested in bats though. We visited her several times before she was released.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Actually, rabies is pretty common in bats. I know a guy who was riding a motorcycle at night and had one fly in his face, killing the bat and scratching his face up. He didn't want the rabies shots but the doctors insisted on giving them to him. When the dead bat was tested, it HAD rabies! He would have died without the shots!

One thing you have to be very careful with about wild animals is when they're not acting normally. And it's not normal for any bat to just lay there on the concrete, and then to let someone handle it! - that's not a good sign. PLEASE make sure he doesn't handle it!
 

Marguerite

Active Member
We don't have rabies in Australia, but our bats carry lyssavirus which is related to rabies. From what I've read, the lyssavirus risk is a worldwide one. However, despite this I also have handled bats. Australian Flying Fox (a large fruit bat) is a pretty thing, very intelligent also. A lady used to live near us and her living room was full of Flying Foxes of different ages. The babies were really sweet.

Marg
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Another one to add to the list of people telling you not to handle a bat that is out and around in daylight; especially one that tolerates handling.

Bats not only are rabies carriers, but the bulk of transmisson of rabies to humans comes via bats.

They are the #1 vector of rabies to humans.
 

Andy

Active Member
When I was a young teenager, my parents built a home. The year it was built, we got a lot of bats in the house. One night we had a friend over and our parents were in bed. A bat started flying around us and we scattered! Everyone running for a bedroom to shut the door with no consideration of anyone else. It was so funny - we didn't want to wake our parents but I think the screaming of some of my sisters prevented them sleeping through this.

We would put buckets of water out and make sure the toilet seats were down. Then in the morning, we would carry the bucket with the bat trapped upside down in the water outside and let it loose.

The facility I work in is very old and we get bats in the fall - then I keep my office door shut! The door to the first office I worked in years ago at this facility was a favorite hang out for bats. Good thing I wasn't scared to walk past it or I would have missed a lot of work. I have a healthy fear - not scared just respecting its danger.
 

Andy

Active Member
For some reason, the bats are attracted to pools of water (we would find them in the toilets if the lids were kept up). They then get trapped, usually upside down so they do not always drown. A bat trap!
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
We used to see a lot of them when we lived out in the country. We had a security light out by the road that came on automatically when it was starting to get dark. As soon as that light came on, the bats would start showing up, swooping around to catch the bugs that were drawn to the light.

You should never see a bat in the daytime. If you ever do, something is wrong with it and you shouldn't go anywhere near it!
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
Nature Boy and his "box o' bat" headed off to work this morning after I made it very clear that it was not staying, not even for The Bat Lady to come and pick it up.

No, he didn't know there was a Bat Lady. I attended a class at the zoo during my student teaching, so I'd met her once. Very interesting subject, but not in my living room.

I pointed out the possibility of rabies several times, but Hubby is a true difficult child, so you can imagine how well those conversations went.

I'm just glad it's gone.
 

rejectedmom

New Member
HOOOOOOOOoBOY! I just got through a series of rabies shots (not fun and they made me very sick) because I MIGHT have been bitten by a bat. I woke up in the middle of the night with a two puncture bite with no animal in sight. It could have been a bat a snake or a spider bite but since I live in a 100+ year old house and rabies is almost 100% fatal my doctor made me get the shots. He said that amost all the reported rabies deaths were from bat bites because often the bite is so tiny people don't even realize they have been bitten. If it had been me that stumbled upon that bat I would not have been quite so charitable as your husband. LOL! -RM
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I would have so been out the door the second that bat came in the house. One more rabies story about bats. A few months ago I read a story about a woman in Montana who brought a dead bat to her children's school and let students touch it. The bat had rabies and all the kids had to get rabies shots.
 
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