Photo © Mark Kiser, BCI / 9142308

Building Homes for Bats

“La Casa” is one of Marvin Maberry's most successful home designs. It has six bedrooms, its own nursery, and zoned heating. It comes in three colors - and has a landing pad. But it isn't for everybody. It's meant to be home to the 2,000 or 3,000 bats that soon will be moving in to have their pups.

That's how The Wall Street Journal started its front-page story on the Daingerfield, Texas, bat-house builder and longtime partner of Bat Conservation International, which sells Mayberry's bat houses through its catalog.

Maberry's bat houses range from $100 economy models to the luxurious $5,650 “Texas Bat Centre” that houses 14,000 bats. The 65-year-old Maberry, says the national newspaper, spends his days testing new shapes and materials. He also works at dispelling the harmful myths that bats are dirty and dangerous vampires. Lure a bat to a bat house, he says, and it can eat mosquitoes and crop-destroying moths, not to mention staying out of human houses.

Yet, the Journal reports, some people hate the idea of giving bats public housing. “Bat houses were effectively banned in Brielle, N.J., after a Boy Scout asked to install some. And they caused a flap in Warren, Mich., where the mayor's office stopped a plan to install them.”

BCI's Selena Kiser told the Journal that bats can eat up to 1,200 bugs an hour, which makes them potential allies in places infested with mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile. And organic farmers across the country are adopting bat houses as part of their natural pest-control programs.

Maberry has been building bat houses since he was a boy on a cattle ranch in central Texas, although, the Journal says, he didn't start pursuing his youthful hobby seriously until 1993, when he was preparing to retire from the Texas Highway Patrol. That, the Journal says, is when he called Bat Conservation International for more information. He also joined BCI's bat-house research program.

Business is good, he says, but competition is growing. Though most bat-house manufacturers still make houses of wood, Maberry makes his of plastics and galvanized steel, all insulated with stucco. Plastic and steel don't weather, while stucco retains heat and gives bats a good gripping surface. He also added vents so the houses wouldn't overheat and tried out different colors for different climates, ultimately settling on light gray, forest green and dark gray. He also created tall shapes, such as the Belfry Tower, that could include an attic at the top with a warmer temperature than the rest of the house.

---

To purchase a Mayberry bat house or those of other makers, visit Bat Conservation International's online catalog at www.batcon.org/catalog

Go to BCI Website