Our bat

We found this little chap on the floor of the barn. He's a brown long-eared bat and very cute!
We put him in a box during the day and put him back in the evening, expecting him to be gone the next morning but he hadn't moved. (NB you need a licence to handle bats unless you are rescuing them from certain death, which with feral cats around he was!)
We got him to drink some milk and although they are supposed to like mealworms his favourite was tuna!
We discovered he was unable to fly, so we kept him with us, feeding him regularly and encouraging him to practise flapping! They are a lot smaller than you expect - he was an adult at 6 grams and about 5cm/2" long including his ears and tail. He was a friendly fella, happy to spend the evening climbing over us until he got comfortably snuggled in someone's armpit, nibbling on tuna and sneezing milk everywhere!
We looked after him for two weeks until he died peacefully on Saturday. It was expected really - if you are able to catch a bat then the chances are they have something seriously wrong with them.
We felt honoured to be able to see and care for a wild animal at such close quarters and we will never forget him.





Sezzle x

 

Love stories like this, thanks for posting.

 

How very special. What a lovely story.

 

orr how cute ...off for a tissue:thumb:

 

oh how sad, poor little mite :(

 

You are very privilaged to have had the chance to handle a bat.

 

How sad Sezzle :( there's bats where i live, i think they're in a near by farm building, there's a couple of them appear above my garden every night just at the darkening, been trying for months and months to catch a shot of them with little success, they're so fast! well done on giving your one a comfortable end.......