bats

[Steele]

has enyone herd of some one keeping bats as pets?

[Rebecca]

Ya I believe people do it all the time. I don't know anyone personally but people do keep them as pets.

[marisa]

There is a person on this forum I believe who rehabs bats. Not sure if they are an active member now but they mentioned it and shared some photos at one time.

Marisa

[Pirranha]

I was always told bats had a more than normals chance of having parasites,and diseases,like fleas,worms,and rabies,because they lived communally-i think it was just so i wouldnt try to play with em as a kid,but the mindset stuck,and ive never heard any different.
What kinds do people keep,and is there any info either for or against what i was told?

-Pat

[SCReptiles]

In the early 90’s we imported and sold Jamaican Fruit Bats. They were pretty good pets. It would be difficult to keep any of the North American species or Vampires.

[Stockwell]

Bats are frequently liked by herpers. Unfortunately they can't be kept legally most places.
They are also extremely high maintenance.
I must recommend never taking possession of any form of wild bat.
Here's a little story for your amusement.

I once had a pet little brown bat. I "rescued" it from a petstore

I had it for a few months, and it was eating me out of house and home. ( I think about 1000 crickets every two weeks)
It got me in loads of trouble, and after it accidentally bit me, it had to be euthanized, there was no option for me to simply receive the Rabies shots. I was forced to either surrender the specimen voluntarily, or have it seized forcefully, under provison of law. So I surrendered it...This is where the story gets strange.

I was instructed to take it "Alive" "in a little container"to the local health authority.

When I did, the margarine container I had the little guy in, started bouncing on the counter...
They flipped right out, and said "it's not alive in there is it?"
I said , yes, I was told to bring it in alive and you guys would look after everything.
Well, they hit the bloody ceiling, and yelled at me and called me every name in the book. Then they asked who told me that, and I gave the guys name....Then they called him every name in the book too.
Then I had to fill out a ton of forms, and while I was writing, a woman was watching me from a distance, and suddenly gasped, and said.
"Oh my god, is that where it bit you????"

I looked at the many red puncture marks she was referring to, and realized it was the opposite hand to where the bat nicked me.

I looked her straight in the face and calmly said..."No, that's just a Boa bite"...."The bat bit me on this hand"
LOL...you should have seen her face

Anyway, I was a celebrity for a while, having every health authority in the country contacting me at work every hour of the day...and asking if I felt OK. Sometimes I wasn't sure if this was a rhetorical question or real concern.
I also found out something you all should realize.
Once you start showing signs or symptoms of Rabies...
Apparently you're too far gone to be cured.
As Johny Carson used to say " I did not know that"

Silly me was thinking if I started to feel weird( like weirder I guess lol) I would seek medical help at that point, of course I would have been toast if that scenario had of played out

Anyway, the bat was euthanized, and the brain irradiated and examined, and tested for Rabies. (they must use the brain for this, apparently)
I requested to just be given the shots to save the animals life, but it doesn't work that way, because they dont just give out those shots...(they are too expensive to give on a maybe)

The test results came back....NEGATIVE.....
I was fine....the Bat was DEAD...end of story

The moral of the story.
Don't play zoo keeper with wild bats... it's not fair to them

[mykee]

Had a friend who kept a few as pets. Cute little buggers. Well-behaved too.

[Jeff_Favelle]

That's a crazy story Roy!! Holy!

Remind me not to let you bite me! ;) :D

[Simon]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
Remind me not to let you bite me! ;) :D

So you would of let Roy bite you before you heard this story?
LOL~
Geeze....I don't think that I'll let anyone bite me...hahaa

Nice story Roy...too bad for the poor little bat....
Glad that you're alright though~

[chas*e]

What a killer story Roy....LMAO

[Stockwell]

Favelle, between my recent flea and mite bites, combined with my bat incident,hundreds of snake bites, and a bout with ticks,plus the fact I was once on doctor prescribed Flagyl, I'm pretty damn close to qualifying as vermin, myself.
You might want a glove to even shake hands! LOL
Every time I use provent o mite, I wonder whether I'll be the first host to die.

[TheRedDragon]

Yikes, that's a hell of a lot to go through over a bat. I would sure love to have one of those cute little critters as a pet, but, I am quite aware of all the implications that follow, so, I just have to dream.

[Linds]

The insectivorous bats are very hard to maintain in captivity I believe due to the fact that they eat an incredibly diverse diet. www.batconservation.org is a great site if you are in to bats. They sell bat houses, and books about building bat houses if you wish to attract bats to your home. Its the best way to have pet bats ;)

A friend of mine had an incident with a bat a few months ago. The cat somehow caught the bat and ripped up one of its wings pretty good. My friend finally managed to catch the little bugger to spare its life, but couldn't bring himself to let it go in that condition. He kept it for a short while before his father came over to visit and told him he should contact the SPCA. I think we all know what happened to that poor little bat :(

LOL Roy should I spray myself down with BK the next time I see you? :p

[Jeff_Favelle]

I'm pretty damn close to qualifying as vermin, myself.


LOL!! YOU said it, not me!!!


Ha ha, JK! :D

[Weather1]

I built a bat house for a friend and I this summer. As soon as I hung it up they were ther in about 3 nights. It is great to sit on my deck at night and see them flying around. Here is the one I built.

http://users.ms11.net/~habitat/bat/medhouse.htm

Edit: I hope the people that buy my house this spring will keep the bat house up. I will then build a new one for my new house. I am moving from Ontario to Victoria because of work.

[LadyHawke]

i have hundreds of bats here...i can sit on the porch and watch them, they are amazing flyers. periodically tho, they like to sneak in and help themselves to the all-you-can-eat buffet of crickets in my reptile room. when you catch them they have such tough little acts trying to look so ferocious, when really they look even more cute. over the summer we have caught about 4 bats, but when we think about it we are not sure if its 4 different bats or the same one coming back

[Dom]

At my work we kept a good 20 bats and all I can say is they eat way too much and **** SOOO OFTEN .. cleaning the cage everymorning was HORRIBLE.. I would never ever consider keping an animal with such a fast digestive system..

[Steele]

I like the wolfe or is it fox bats they can get 3 foot wingspan that is cool

[Linds]

Flying foxes get crazy big and look like puppies :D

[nolagurl]

I'm rather fond of bats myself. I think herpers, particularly snakes lovers, just have a fondness for misunderstood animals.
I lived at the Grand Canyon over the summer and they were all over the place. Night hiking was great as they would fly within inches of your face.

[Invictus]

I agree, nolagurl.. herpers have a penchant for the exotic. That's probably why almost any store that carries reptiles also has tarantulas, scorps, and other inverts.

I also would LOVE to have a bat, but good luck finding any CBB ones! With the risk of disease, that's the only way I'd ever buy one. But, you never know. Someday they might be commonplace in the pet trade.

[Hamster of Borg]

Its not likely they'll ever become common place in the pet trade, not as long as health departments and the CDC consider them a public health risk nation wide in the US and Canada. The permits to be able to just rehab them legally are not easy to get. The hassle involved if you did get caught with one doesn't extend to just the health department freaking out - but it can easily end up with fines, or even potentially, criminal charges if they think that you put anyone else at risk.

The CDC actually almost lifted its control on the possession/importation exotic bat species a couple of years ago when they were redoing the laws and then suddenly realized what that would mean and decided to keep it under their belt.

Bat care isn't really much more involved than most herp care - just a different set of rules to go by. :)

Ham

[Brodie]

Here in Australia Flying Foxes used to make the perfect pets..until it was discovered they carried a rabies like disease.... Also I volunteer at my local wildlife park..we keep ghosts bats and a few other species..they arent very demanding at all however it isnt nice cleaning up all the mouse guts that are spread throughout the enclosure every morning ;)
Cheers

[nolagurl]

Originally posted by Brodie
it isnt nice cleaning up all the mouse guts that are spread throughout the enclosure every morning ;)
Cheers

Hence why I like snakes. Swallow em hole, poop once a week or once a month depending on the size.

I volunteer at my local zoo. I help maintain the birds of prey. One falcon in particular likes to skin her mice. She's very good at it too! She leaves a tidy little *mouse coat*.

[nolagurl]

Originally posted by Invictus
herpers have a penchant for the exotic. That's probably why almost any store that carries reptiles also has tarantulas, scorps, and other inverts.



I still think bugs are icky! lol I don't hate them anymore but I won't touch one. There's nothing nastier than having a bug fly into your eye, ear, or mouth. They are really interesting, amazing critters but I'd never keep one.