Bat babysitting

[tiggymalvern]

You know those moments when you find yourself doing something so odd, and then you stop and look at it objectively and think, 'How is it that these things happen to me?'

Last night a bat got into the house. Don't ask us how, the best possibility we could come up with was the chimney, but we had the flue gates closed. But the SO woke me in the early hours to point out that there was a bat flying round the house, and yes, there was, and I didn't see that we could do a whole lot about it. There was no window we could leave open for the bat that the cats wouldn't get out of and get eaten by the coyotes. So we pondered for a while, then went back to sleep.

This morning, of course, we couldn't find the bat. I looked in the dark accessible places, of which there really aren't many (especially since I cleaned just the other week XD) and checked all the high ceilings. We hoped it had found its way back out wherever it came in.

But no. This evening the boys had found it. They hadn't physically hurt it, but the poor thing was hunched miserably on the floor with a cat on either side, occasionally poking a lazy paw in its direction to make it crawl. It had to be dehydrated and hypoglycaemic after all the stress, and missing out on so much of its feeding time last night, so I made up some of the humming bird nectar and fed it drops from the end of a syringe. (I picked it up wrapped in a tea towel and kept it that way, with my fingers nowhere near its squashed in little face - yes, I do know they can carry rabies.) When I touched the first drop to the end of its nose, its little bat tongue came out from between tiny bat teeth and lapped at it. The poor thing was reaching for it as I slowly eked out the next tiny drops. So now it's with the tea towel in a shoebox in a cupboard to see if it recovers well enough to let it go tonight, and I'm left with the visual oddity that is me feeding humming bird nectar to a two inch long bat wrapped in my tea towel.

I hope it lives.

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, very cool. Take photos if you get a chance!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I'd like to, but I obviously don't want to use flash or stress it too much, so they might come out a bit movement blurred. I'll give it a go when I check on it when the SO gets home - I'd like to be able to pin down a species, which will be easier with pics.

[hopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

Awww...cute! And at least the bat had the good sense/good luck to get trapped in a veterinarian's home, eh? :-) I don't think I would have thought of the sugar water trick...

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I think if sense had been involved, it would have stayed outside! Sugar's hardly natural food for a bat, but it's still a mammal, and we all run on glucose after processing. It's unlikely to do much harm, under the fairly dire circumstances.

[imre-nico.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that there's a woman at Point Defiance Zoo's bat house who will take in any bats and rehabilitate them, if he turns out to have lingering problems.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Certainly if we haven't got it out of the door by tomorrow morning, we'll be looking for bat specialist volunteers to take over, so recommendations are well received.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

Awww, how cute! And nice of your cats not to maim it permanently! :-)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

They were really rather bored with their toy when I came across them, it just didn't run fast enough to be worth chasing....

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Awww, the poor little thing! I hope it's OK, it came to the right person anyway. ***sends good thoughts to tiny bat***

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Tiny bat's getting more active each time when we feed him, so hopefully he'll do :-)

[imre-nico.livejournal.com]

<3333 I've had to do that twice now. Found a baby brown bat who couldn't cling onto his nest crawling on the floor of a women's bathroom at a rest stop. He was literally no bigger than a really big spider, and in imminent danger of being crushed by ladies' high heels. >_<

And then I found a young male on a sidewalk at noon, dehydrated and disoriented. So into the cardboard infirmary he went!

And yeah, it was all about the eyedropper, and, as I learned when I was a volunteer of Bats Northwest, a lightly damp sponge in the box with them allows them to suck water. They dehydrate really easily, and usually if an exhausted bat doesn't get enough water it dies of exposure.

I'm kind of a bat fanatic, so I hope you take pictures <333

And lucky little guy, to have his mishap in the house of a compassionate veterinarian and wildlife lover!

I shudder to think what most people would have done.

Much love to you, Spontaneous Bat Hospice.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Sponge added, thanks! I've fed it three times now and it's distinctly more active at each feeding, so I think there's hope for it :-)

I'm sure there are people who would have had difficulty getting to sleep with a bat flying round their house, but not me XD I'm kind of not looking forward to getting up every hour through the night to feed it some more tonight....

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

OH man, so cute!

Would it like to eat a bug, perhaps? It might be insectiverous.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Given bats in general, and the teeth on this one, it almost certainly is insectivorous. But I try to keep bugs in generally short supply around my house (and it's still only March, they're not in full flow yet). Probably the only thing I could catch for it would be a moth, and I like moths. Oh, noes, conflict!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

And only 2 inches? That's tiny!

Which is, of course, why it took the cats to find it, not us! If we didn't have the cats, it would probably just have starved to death in a quiet corner of the house.

I wonder what people who don't like bats do when there's a bat flying round the house?

[mac-lynn.livejournal.com]

I hope your little friend makes it but it won't be for lack of trying on your part. I can tell you truthfully, I wouldn't have been able to do what you are doing or even have known what to do! You are just too sweet. ^.^

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I think sugar water or some equivalent goes well with most small weak, shocked or injured things. Birds get the same treatment too. It could probably have used some kind of regulated heat pad, but I don't keep those lying around the house, and I didn't want to cook it!

[yma2.livejournal.com]

That sounds... really sweet. Bats are utterly adorable things. I hope it lives too...

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I love bats - they're fascinating things. The lady at the rescue centre seemed to think it would be probably be okay, since it had no visible injuries. If it was going to die of shock, it would probably have done it overnight.

[lesovikha.livejournal.com]

I would <3 more than anything to see a snap of the little beauty. I hope it continues to refresh itself from your efforts, but if not. Nicole's rec' was exactly what I was going to suggest. What an adventure.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Done! Pictures (such as they are!) in the latest post :-)