Madison Wildlife Removal: What Is A Bat Valve?

Bat removal is necessary if you have the flying mammals in your home to avoid exposure to diseases and parasites. Nevertheless, it has to be carried out responsibly. A bat valve can be a good way to get the bats out of your home, but it is critically important to use it correctly.

How and Why Do Bats Get Into Your Home in the First Place?

As nocturnal animals, bats hunt at night and sleep during the day. Sunlight affects their ability to sleep, just as you would probably have trouble sleeping if there was a light shining in your face. Therefore, bats look for dark places in which to roost. They also need warm places in which to hibernate and raise their babies. An unfinished attic often fits both criteria very nicely. When your roof was first constructed, all the joints and seams probably fit together perfectly. However, over time they may have come apart, producing gaps and holes. Bats are able to squeeze through very small openings, such as a ridge vent, a soffit, or the corner of your roof. Once inside, they may start roosting in your attic.

What Is a Bat Valve, and How Does It Work?

A bat valve takes advantage of the fact that, once bats get into your attic, they always enter and exit by the same opening when they go out at night to look for food. The valve is installed over the opening by which the bats are getting in and out. It looks like a long, skinny tube. A bat can navigate it by crawling inside and shimmying down to get out. However, the valve has a one-way door inside it, so when the bat comes back from hunting, it cannot get back into your attic the same way it went out.

Can You Purchase and Install a Bat Valve Yourself?

Technically, the answer to this question is yes. You can purchase your own bat valve and install it on your home yourself to get rid of bats in your attic. However, this isn't a very good idea for a couple of reasons. Due to multiple factors, including habitat loss and disease, the bat population is in decline. The government has regulations in place to protect bats. For example, you cannot disturb a bat while it is hibernating, and you also cannot perform any bat removal while bats are raising offspring. Bat babies are typically born in mid-summer and are dependent on their mothers for several months. If you install a bat valve while there are babies in the roost, the mothers will not be able to get back to feed and care for them. Without their mother, the baby bats will die, which can not only get you in trouble with the law, but you then have the problem of dead bats in your attic to deal with. Another reason you should not purchase and install your own bat valve is that you may install it incorrectly, and it may not work as a result.

What Are the Benefits of Hiring Skedaddle for Bat Removal?

Our technicians have the ability to assess where the bats are in their breeding cycle. We are aware of and compliant with the laws applicable to wildlife control in Madison, and if we can't perform the exclusion now, we will make a plan with you to carry it out as soon as it is possible. We not only install one-way doors to remove bats from your home humanely, but we also clean up the contamination where they have been to protect you from bacteria and other pathogens. Find out more about what our expert bat exclusion includes.