Welcome to the Austin Bat Hospital!

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512-289-6138

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Location
2276 Sundown Lane Austin Texas 78749

Inside the Hospital

The OR

Treating injuries on little bats can be difficult. Some bats consider barely 3 grams. Also a medium-sized bat in the U.S. is small, weighing between 10 to 20 grams, less than one ounce. Multiplying lens are needed to analyze these little animals, as well as wild animals rehabilitators have to locate ingenious means to treat their injuries.

The Flight Cate

Here is the trip cage where recovering bats reclaim flight endurance and also where orphaned bat dogs learn to fly as well as catch pests. It was initially a 60-foot green house. One section was eliminated and the 12-foot metal frame covered with one-quarter inch plastic mesh to allow bugs to enter. Both incandescent as well as black lights are connected inside to bring in a variety of pests. In the summer season, the entire cage virtually full of bugs from top to bottom, so the children obtain a lot of practice chasing insects!

I have actually gathered bat droppings from tarpaulins put on the ground inside the cage as well as sent them to Dr. John Whitaker at the University of Indiana for analysis of insect parts. Orphaned bats find out to catch insects by themselves, although it takes them longer to find out than it would certainly if they had a mom to educate them. By offering them with supplemental hand feedings, rehabbers can give them the extra time they require to end up being efficient at catching insects prior to they are launched back into the wild.

Cleaning cages during damp period

For some it is a reflective effort finest experienced in solitude; for others it needs songs that can not be heard over the stress hosing unless earphones are used. I am one of those strange individuals who discover a lot of songs much of the time quite annoying. I can not assume! The volunteers fit me by not playing songs though audio speakers if I am about. Several of us meditative-types though occasionally listen to podcasts while cleaning.

There is an additional element to cleaning based on whether volunteers favor to share the job or do it in solitude. Some have a system and also requirement of cleanliness that matches the only cleaner. Others conversation and laugh with the cleansing, sharing the experience. Sharing ends up being necessary in the middle of orphan period when all 8 cages require cleansing, not just the a couple of with the rest of the year.

Cleaning up is a daily ritual at the bat health center that is prevented by the wet season. The persistent dampness expands scum and also fungus as well as every little thing in between. Keep in mind the mushrooms expanding on this broom that was last used the day before. Cleaning the floorings currently of year needs a great deal of scrubbing on both the polyethylene and concrete floors. Say thanks to paradises for the drainage layout that takes all the waste water away to the septic tank. We have actually found that a great stress clean on the polyethylene floors adhered to by a brooming of vinegar helps enormously, however not for long. The concrete floorings clean up best with a stiff brooming complied with by vinegar. Every 3 weeks we have a professional pressure washing company who does pressure washing all throughout the south and mainly does pressure washing in Buford, GA come in and do a through clean up. 

Caring for lots– Cairns heat anxiety occasion
The Cairns warm stress and anxiety occasion in late 2018 accompanied our paralysis tick period and also showed all of us regarding caring for lots of flying fox orphans. The ticks started with a revenge in mid September such that by the last week in November we had 250 orphans in treatment, consisting of 50 from Cape Tribulation and also Cairns. By then the dry period truly kicked in as well as it was as well desiccating for the ticks to be out questing on vegetation for bat blood. We found fairly couple of adults with tick paralysis throughout November (2-5 a day) and also we assumed we ‘d have a fairly peaceful December.

However on the 26th November the first ever warm stress and anxiety occasion in this area struck the Cairns area. With the fatalities of regarding 23,000 Spectacled flying foxes, concerning 900 orphans were looking for homes in a matter of 3 days. These came from swarms in the Cairns location along with Ingham. At the same time the Black flying foxes a little further south in Townsville shared a similar fate with 10,000 dead and also concerning 700 orphans.

We were able to take 500 of the Spectacled orphans, bringing the total amount to 750 orphans here at the bat healthcare facility. Continue reading to hear just how we managed to take care of them

The youngest orphans are housed in heated boxes in this room, with time out daily on the verandah for sunlight. Here they are being toiletted, cleansed, wrapped and also positioned in boxes all set for feeding by volunteers in the surrounding space.

The tiniest orphans are individually hand fed, however as they grow older can be box-fed, 4 bats to a box. The bats are positioned to ensure that the bottle for one bat rests up against it’s neighbor. Our most skilled volunteers can wrap the bats as well as multiple-box feed them pretty swiftly. Experienced carers make all the distinction for looking after lots of flying fox orphans.

These frames are the crucial to caring for great deals of young orphans– they make it very fast to relocate lots of bats in and out, right into rest and also up once again. It is crucial the young bats obtain an hour or more of sunlight a day as well as a couple of hrs of lie down twice a day. The floor of the structure can be easily readjusted into a high placement to make sure that the orphans relax, or into a lower position permitting them to hang. To handle extra orphans, we rapidly constructed 2 even more structures, this time around with their very own legs rather than making use of sawhorses, and took control of one of the volunteer areas in the Baby room building.

Orphans leave the Baby room at regarding 8 weeks old to visit the Orphan Cage. From there they graduate to the big Trip Cage where they discover many points– flying, socializing with grownups (not!), climbing up or flying to the top of the cage or down to the consuming areas. To care fro the large numbers we required to build this blue tarpaulin room to link cages on both sides, creating one large lengthy feeding location.

We were supported by Tablelands Regional Council to extend the verandahs of the launch cage to handle the extra numbers this year. The extended damp weather required constructing a boardwalk from pallets reduced to size so we could get away the mud (not shown in photo). It additionally decreased the price at which we could launch the orphans. We expect to sustain at the release cage up until completion of June, though the quantity of food heading out each day is now down to a minimum.

Long-lasting climate documents for heat, dry spell and rainfall in our exotic far north area of Queensland were all broken in late November 2018 and also right into early 2019. The good news is we had a great deal of volunteers booked in for this orphan season, a lot of them repeat volunteers as well as several of them staying 2-3 months. We accelerated our usual bulk buying of bat food, employed regional volunteers much more often and also became much more existing than normal on social media sites to draw in contributions. We likewise started intending to expand our launch centers out at Tolga Scrub.

Tick season 2017
This has been our 2nd year straight that fairly couple of Spectacled flying-foxes (SFF) were impacted by paralysis ticks (and so less orphans right into treatment), and extremely few Little Red flying-foxes (LRFF) were entangled in barbed cable. Luckily. We had 140 orphans in care consisting of 40 from Cairns and also 20 Black FFs from Townsville. A lot of years we take care of over 300 orphans so this was a reasonably sane period despite the fact that functioning a minimum of 10-15 hours a day.

The live-in volunteers who made it all feasible: Shannon (UK), Christina (Oz), Traudel (Germany), Joakim (Sweden), Jen (U.S.A.), Madi (Oz), Fiona & Lauren (mother & child Oz), Georgina (Oz), Lindsey (USA), Claudia (Mexico), Ziggy (U.S.A.), Brandon & Katherine (U.S.A.), Rachel (Oz), Celine (Oz), Laura (Denmark), Jackie (USA), Megha (Singapore), and also Amanda (Oz). Likewise our valued regional volunteers– Stacey, Sherri, Michelle, Petra, Dinah, David.

Regardless of there being big numbers of LRFFs in the location, we’ve just had actually 25 been available in off barbed wire. There have had to do with 400,000 camping all through the town of Irvinebank concerning 40minutes drive west of below, and similar numbers after that at Tolga (10 mins drive north) as well as Mareeba (40 mins drive north). This unavoidably causes BAT national politics and also working with the neighborhood as well as Councils to endure the inescapable short-term damage to trees to get the lasting impacts of their pollination solutions. LRFFs like to await collections unlike the 3 larger varieties of flying-fox that hang singly. They really feel more secure in the collections, as being smaller sized in size they are much more easily predated on by birds of prey. This can create branches to bend as well as ultimately break.

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