Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Bat Rehabilitator

Hey, thanks for being willing to help out these bats! They really need it, and not everybody would do this

For my question, have you noticed different personalities in the bats? Or different ways they interact?

Thank-you for your work in rehabilitating bats and for sharing our pictures. Those babies are so tiny!

How do you handle the feeding of the babies?

You are most welcome!

Definitely! Whether it is anthropomorphising them or genuine differences, no two bats are the same in terms of their personality. You have the greedy ones, the quiet ones, the ones who don't shut up...

You are most welcome!

For the babies, they are fed every two hours day and night on a form of kitten milk that has the right balance of proteins, fats etc. I use either a small paintbrush or one of those watercolour painting brushes that allows me to control how much milk comes out at any one time without needing to stop and dip every few minutes.

From there, they are progressed to every three hours, then every four. At every four hours, they are introduced to mealworm guts and at the point of feeding them in the morning and evening, they are usually fed one milk meal and one worm one. Some start feeding themselves at this point.

It is often at the point when they are on the two meals a day routine that they start feeding themselves, which results in them starting to de-attach in the sense of looking to me for food.

We also groom them to mimic their mother early on as well.

Thank-you for your detailed answers.

Pardon me a moment while I squeal in delight.

Anyway, questions. (Sorry I have so many.)

Does this take place at a dedicated facility (context implies so, but just wanted to clarify), or are the bats housed in your homes?

How did you become a bat rehabilitator?

I assume the goal is to release them, but do you often find yourself with long-term residents?

Since bats tend to live in colonies, are there release procedures to try to help recovered bats find a colony to join, or return to one they may have originally come from? Or is that more up to them once they're healthy enough?

Do you ever end up with bats in your care that you know to be foreign (whether or not that would imply illegal activities to get them there)? If so, or if the possibility has at least been considered, how would those cases be managed? Find a way to send them home, keep them as permanent residents, something else...?

Thank you for your service. This thread made me smile.

How do most of your residents come to you? Are bats considered common pests?

Also, is it true that bats can't see in color? How does their visual perception work?

Questions are good!

It depends on the carer. Some have enough resources, pooled or otherwise, to establish their own dedicated facility. Some don't. Me and my spouse (we are both bat carers) do this out of our house and the local bat group I am connected to shares a flight cage with another group. This allows for the testing of longer-term residents to ensure that they are 'flight ready' before release, which is important if they have spent the winter in with us or a longer period of time to heal from an injury.


I joined my local bat group and went from there! I initially tried bat surveying and while the money isn't bad and it is fairly easy, bat care is far more fulfilling for me so that is where the bulk of my efforts have gone to. I was mentored by at least 3 more experienced carers in the group. There is no license or certification system for bat carers in the UK - it is a combination of learning from those who are more experienced and hands-on. Caring for a bat for longer than 6 months or indefinitely does require a license however, which I have.
Not all that often. We've had only one permanent resident so far who sadly died a few months ago - he had an injury following a fight with another member of his colony that didn't heal properly. He could still half-fly, roost and feed himself so he was made an education bat. Education bats are basically bat ambassadors, helping us to provide outreach. Pre-Covid, he had been to at least one talk to show people, 'hey look, bats are adorable, not scary at all and need our help to keep them safe'.
The goal is to release a bat as close as possible to where they were found. In cases where the original roost isn't known, they are released as close as possible. Where not just the roost but also their home turf isn't known, we have a bat-friendly site in the village we live in that has 'fostered' bats into it. We know there are wild bats in the area as well, which is evidence that there are enough resources for them.
This involves a national government agency. All foreign bats are quarantined, as countries over the pond may have higher incidences of rabies than we do. After the isolation is over, the decision whether to keep as a permanent resident or to release is made on a case by case basis.

As an example: We had a bat come in last year who was found in the back of a car from France. He was quarantined and the agency alerted. I was then informed that the car had made multiple stops and that given the dates when the car was first shipped and the stops, he would not have survived if he had got into the car overseas. This meant that he was actually a UK bat, although the places where he could've got in the car were still very far apart. This meant that after his quarantine was over, the decision was made to foster him into our local bat population.

That is good to hear! You are most welcome. Happy to help.
Most contact me via the national bat helpline that a bat conservation charity has established. It connects people to me based on location. I've also had word of mouth referrals via social media and people finding my details on a local wildlife rescue directory.

Bats here are are protected species, making it illegal to kill them, illegal to harm them, and illegal disturb or destroy their roosts. While some people no doubt do regard them as pests, it is up to bat carers, bat workers and bat fans to help to educate people on them, to try and change that view.
For the bats in the UK, yes. It is hypothesised that some of the larger types might be able to see in colour.

Here is a good blog post explaining it:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/if-bats-are-blind-why-do-they-have-eyes/
Eyesight + echolocation.

'It is a common misconception that bats are blind. While they cannot see the range of colours humans can, bats can in fact see and possess extremely sensitive eyes that make it possible to see in the dark. Solely in monochrome, research suggests that their eyes have evolved to utilise the cover of night to forage prey undetected. Likewise, this helps them to avoid potential predators who may need the light to hunt them at night.'
https://arbtech.co.uk/british-bats/

That's fascinating. I'd heard they could see in monochrome, but I didn't know their sight was considered 'good', given that rats apparently have terrible sight. I wondered about how it evolved in other rodents.

Thanks for your time.

Apologies for the interruption (especially if I'm wrong here).

Bats actually aren't rodents! If I remember right, bats are actually much more closely related to primates than to rodents.

Also, it's pretty typical for nocturnal creatures to have a higher ratio of rods to cones (if any cones) and therefore have limited or no color vision in favor of improved light/dark differentiation. (Regardless how good or bad their vision is overall.) Though, plenty bats, especially among fruit bats, aren't nocturnal, either. (Then again, neither are dogs, but dogs also have extremely limited color vision.)

(It's mostly been Australian bat rescues that I've paid attention to. I'm not Australian, but they deal a lot more with flying foxes, which look like sky puppies.)

Again, sorry for the interruption in someone else's thread.

Thank you for sharing, Ink and bones. I have pipistrelles in my loft.

I also host Batwatch Night down on my local allotments as I support the Bat Conservation Trust.

I'll also add that bats branched off from quite a lot of mammals early on, hence why there are no connections between them (with true flight) and other 'flying' mammals (who often glide rather than use any sort of powering).

If you look at a cladogram that involves bats, you can see that they branched off on their own from placental mammals (Scotifera). The other branch off from Scotifera is Ferungulata.

Oh excellent! Is it a static or more seasonal population(s)?

It is through them that I engage with the Helpline. I've also done Helpline shifts for them.

Batwatch night around allotments sounds very productive.

I actually didn't know how far-removed bats were from other species. I learned something today. Thanks for sharing.