THE COLONY

A gentleman, remodeling his house, created our other winter challenge. He found "six" bats in some extracted insulation. Arriving for the rescue, we were met by a nervously worried homeowner who had drastically underestimated his Brown Bat population. It had increased to a final total of 19 furry hibernating squatters! It took Bob 4 long hours to complete the intake and examination of each bat in this "colony", a mixture of adult males, females, and juveniles. This group added 2 ½ hours of individual hand feeding to his 3-hour daily workload. After a week of “going bats" insanity, it was decided that this wintering addition should be re-hibernated. We finally concluded that one of the upstairs guestrooms could be used for this project (Don't worry, it's not the one you'll be staying in). Closed off and unheated, the temperature was a perfect 55. But the humidity? It takes 2 humidifiers to bring our isolated bat room to 40%. But, when testing this prospective location, the moisture level in this room was an already impossible whopping 52%!! Scowling about this *##!!#* humongous humidity problem, Bob growled, "Another thing to fix!" Ann, however, dancing around and clapping, exclaimed, "Don't fix it! We've got a bat hibernation room!" Ann got her wish; the "colony" of 19 was re-hibernated and totally released in the spring.