How to Kill Bats - Is Poison the Answer?
How To Kill Bats - Pest animals can be a real pain and cause a lot of damage when they get into domestic or commercial buildings, and one of the natural reactions is to look for ways to kill these animals. Bats are particularly problematic as they are known to be a reservoir of rabies within the United States, although not the biggest culprit, and they can also transmit diseases through bites, scratches or even through their feces. There are a variety of different ways that can be used to kill bats, and while they are not ideal, they will help you to kill the animal. If you are looking for a permanent solution to a bat problem, you may also want to consider alternative methods of dealing with the animal too.
Lethal Traps
There are plenty of different types of traps that you can use to kill bats, but one of the most successful is a glue board that is affixed to an area where the bats use to crawl in and out of their colony. This will then cause the bat to stick to the glue board, although those of a squeamish disposition will not want to think too much about how long the bats take to die once they are caught in this type of trap.
Another type of trap is the body grip trap, which is a much quicker way to kill the bats, although not nearly as effective, which has a metal mechanism that snaps shut around the body crushing it to death when the trap is triggered. In some cases even cage traps can be lethal for bats, as their natural echolocation doesn't work within the cage, causing the bats to repeatedly fly into the wire mesh of the cage.
Poisoning Bats
Poison is another way that can be used to kill animals, but the biggest challenge when using poison to kill bats is how to get the bats to ingest the poison. As the bat's diet is made up of flying insects, you cannot mount the poison on the back of such insects, so the traditional poisons are ineffective in dealing with bats.
The other type of approach that can sometimes be used is to fumigate the bats to death, but this also causes significant problem. As you will need to seal a particular area of the property, this can be challenging, as the fumigants are not only illegal, but they can be toxic to humans as well as bats. The issue with this approach is that in many cases the bats find a way to escape into the main area of the building, and cause significant damage once this has occurred.
Problems With Using Lethal Methods To Deal With Bats
The reality is that bats are often better dealt with in a more humane method that will deliver the achieved results without the problems that come with using lethal methods of dealing with bats. Because the lethal methods includes coming into contact with bat carcasses, and sometimes dying bats, this can be a threat to the health of the individual, and certainly requires plenty of protective clothing and a breathing mask. Exclusion techniques are often simpler and more effective, and they will get the bats to move on to another site for the colony, while still remaining in the area to deal with all the wasps, mosquitoes and other airborne insects that can thrive without the presence of the bats.
Bat Exclusion Techniques
One of the most common ways of getting bats out of their colony site within a domestic or commercial building is to find the points that they are getting in and out, and then either using a funnel or exclusion netting to get them out. It is important that you find all of the entry and exit points, otherwise the bats will simply be able to get back into the attic or roof space in another way. Funnels will allow the bats to get out of a small entry hole but not to get back in, while larger entry points are best dealt with using exclusion netting, which works in a similar way to allow them out, but prevent access back to the colony.
Cleaning And Repairing A Former Bat Colony
One of the most important thing to remember when carrying out this work is that you will need to wear protective clothing and equipment such as long sleeved clothing and a breathing mask, as the bacteria found in bat droppings can be quite harmful. The cleaning work will require the collection and removal of the droppings, and there is usually plenty of this in the area where the bat colony has been present. It is also important to remove and replace any insulation contaminated by the droppings, and then to decontaminate the area to ensure it is safe should you need to visit this part of the building again.
Go back to the main Bat Removal page for more information about how to kill bats. Is poison a good way to exterminate bat?
