The Life Cycle And Reproduction Of Bats: A Comprehensive Overview For Omaha Residents
Each season of the year brings its flavor to the year. In the spring, we enjoy budding flowers, trees, and the return of life after dormancy. The summer follows with strolls and fine dining in the Old Market neighborhood, visits to the zoo, and other outdoor activities. The fall brings cooler weather, the beauty of leaves changing, and visits to the pumpkin patch. Winter rounds out the year with cold temperatures, snow, and evenings spent sipping hot chocolate near a cozy fire. As our area experiences seasons, bats also have seasons in their lives.
Understanding how bats develop and respond during each growth phase is helpful if you wonder why bats are around your house or in your attic. Secure bat control in Omaha from CP Bat Mitigation if you have bats in your home or infesting your property. With over 32 years of bat removal experience, our family-owned and operated company serves the Central Midwest by providing humane mitigation services. As our name suggests, bat removal is the sole focus of our company, not an add-on service. We pride ourselves on being an industry leader in bat removal services.
With bat mitigation experience in over 13,000 projects, we know a thing or two about bats. You probably found this article because you have a bat problem and need answers. Therefore, we wrote this article to help you understand this unique flying mammal and what you can do to protect your property against a bat invasion.
Professional Bat Removal: Keeping Your Family Safe And Healthy
Bat removal in your Omaha home begins with a request for your free bat inspection. The reason why we provide a free investigation of your Omaha property is that each situation is unique. A trained, licensed technician will check your attic, roof, and exterior to locate attractants, entry points, and bat hot spots. We produce a custom quote that includes removal costs, clean-up, and the warranty. Upon approval, we schedule the service.
Humane bat control begins with sealing up all entry points except one (in most cases). On the one entrance left, we attach our exclusive exclusion device that allows bats to exit your house but cannot reenter. Emptying your home of bats may take six to eight weeks, depending upon the size of the infestation. Once the bats are gone, we remove the device and seal the remaining entry point. Afterward, we can clean and sanitize the area to remove the guano and protect your family from future airborne fungal spores.
If you need bat pest control near you, CP Bat Mitigation is your answer. Contact us today.
The Bat Life Cycle: From Birth To Maturity
Bats are the only mammal capable of sustained flight. Because bats are the only mammal that can fly, they are in scientific order (Chiroptera), which means "hand wing." If you are a little foggy about biology, here is a definition of mammals: mammals are animals that bear live offspring, produce milk, and grow hair.
In the fall, when leaves turn golden brown, temperatures decrease, and bats begin to mate. During this season, the male bats form harems of five to ten female bats to impregnate. During the winter, the impregnated bats hibernate, delaying fertilization due to slower metabolism, lower body temperature, and slower breathing.
With spring comes an abundance of food and a resumption of activity for the bats. During this active and abundant season, the females release the sperm held in utero to allow fertilization of their egg. The females leave the harem and migrate to form nursing colonies with other pregnant females. Because food is accessible, the embryos can develop. Around May or June, each female gives birth to a pup. Big brown and little brown bats in Omaha produce only one offspring annually; however, red bats, also in our area, may have up to four pups annually. During the gestation and birth timeframe, the males stay away from the nursing colonies.
Maternity Season: Protecting Bat Mothers And Their Young
When a pup is born, a small pouch near the mother's tail protects the maturing baby bat as it matures. The mother can travel with her child tucked away in the pocket; however, they often leave them in the nest. The mother nurses her pup for a month or longer until it can hang onto branches or ledges and fly. After six weeks, the new bat ventures from the nest to forage for food and live independently from its mother.
There are several reasons bats need to be protected:
- Bat reproduce slower than other wildlife
- Urban sprawl reduces nesting opportunities
- White-nose syndrome is killing many bats
Unlike many insects that produce hundreds, even thousands of eggs annually, most bats deliver only one offspring yearly. So, bats do not reproduce in droves like insects or rodents.
As communities grow, trees and other natural habitats are removed or overrun by humans limiting locations for bats to roost. Forest fires due to human incompetence, lightning strikes, and poor forest management are other factors that decrease roosting areas and affect the bat population. Although wind turbines may produce clean energy, they kill many bat species as they migrate to find nursing colonies to raise their young.
White-nose syndrome is from a fungus that attacks hibernating bats (particularly the little brown bat species) and decreases their ability to maintain a warm body temperature and energy. This disease, which appears as a powdery white substance on the bat's face, wings, ears, and tail, is particularly deadly for female bats because their weakened bodies are no longer strong enough to endure the gestation period.
Bats need protection. Although the federal government passed the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1956 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, not all bat species are covered. These legislative acts underscore the necessity to protect bats and their offspring.
CP Bat Mitigation provides professional bat removal in Omaha. Our mitigation process protects bats while also removing them from your home. We understand that attics can be roosting areas where nursery colonies form for female bats to hibernate as they prepare to produce their pups in the spring. Therefore, we carefully handle those situations to preserve the prospective mothers' and future pups' lives while removing the threat from your home.
Every Bat Needs A Home, Just Not Yours
Bats offer many benefits to the natural world but cause many problems when they enter your home or business. CP Bat Mitigation provides the services necessary to make your structure bat-free in a way that is humane and allows the bats to find a new, better place to live. Let our experts provide you with the guaranteed services you need to solve your bat problems. Contact us today.
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Inspecting your home helps us identify where bats are in your house and how they got inside. We use this information to create a customized control plan for your home.
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Our control process is unique to CP Bat Mitigation. It involves sealing entry points and installing an exclusion device to safely and humanely remove bats from your home.
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We don’t stop working until your bat infestation is gone. We’ll follow up with you six to eight weeks after our initial service to make sure our plan is going as planned.
Hear From Our Happy Customers
At CP Bat Mitigation, your satisfaction is our priority! See for yourself what our customers have to say about working with us.
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Very fast, prompt service. Inspection took place within 2 days, and they eradicated the bats in our house shortly after. Excellent business that gets the job done at a fair price. So pleased they were my first and only call.- Daniel H.
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“This is an outstanding company and I would recommend them to anyone that is dealing with a bat issue.”- Jonathan D.
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“Jon was one of the upmost respectful and professional individuals I have encountered in a long time. He was honest and provided great feedback on bats. He saved us money with tips I could do myself.”- Jack L.
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“CP Bat Mitigation was great to work with. They were easy to communicate with and willing to work with my schedule. They were prompt and thorough with their assessment and took the time to answer all my questions. Nick with CP Bat Mitigation was great to wo”- Patrick F.
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“Very responsive, polite, professional, and thorough. Great communication, professional work, and guaranteed to the life of my roof. Affordable rates for a critical service.”- Glen P.
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“We were very impressed with our consultation. Nick explained everything very well and answered all of our questions. We look forward to the warmer days when the bats can be kept out of our home.”- Shannon B.
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“I really enjoyed having Nick ease my mind about having bats. He explained everything to me and showed me the spots where bats enter. He also explained how they would seal up the entry holes and allow them to leave but not re-enter.”- Bonnie G.
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“CP Bat Mitigation not only are bat experts but are very knowledgeable about roofs. They did an inspection of my home and explained how a bat or two could have gotten in through an old gutter system. These guys are amazing, and true to their word the inspec”- April G.