Hola, everyone. I have a question. I live outside Banos. I have a small farm and a few animals. The problem I have is with vampire bats coming in the barn at night and bleeding my animals. To be specific it is a 6 month old calf. He stays in a barn that is completely closed in. The windows have screen. I have tried to close in every way possible to enter but he still has blood drops on the floor in the morning.
Some of the locals suggested a mixture of manteca y achiote and wipe it on the hide. Others say to poison bananas and leave them to eat.[ funny, they suck blood not eat bananas]
If you people with super internet could help me with a little intelligent input, It would greatly be appreciated. So far I believe that leaving a light on at night seems to help but it is too soon to know if it works. I will keep you informed.
I have a claro modem and it is next to worthless and takes forever to load a page. That is another story.
muchisimas gracias
Don Carlos
Everyday life
DonCarlos wrote:coming in the barn at night and bleeding my animals. To be specific it is a 6 month old calf. He stays in a barn that is completely closed in...So far I believe that leaving a light on at night seems to help but it is too soon to know if it works.
You may be on the right track with lighting the area. And it's a less invasive technique than poisoning fruit.
According to a University of Michigan study:
"The common vampire bat, D. rotundus, prefers (to attack) mammals, especially livestock....Common vampire bats hunt only when it is fully dark."
These bats can only live a couple of days without a blood meal, however, so who knows whether they'd be desperate enough to hunt in a lighted barn after two days....
In spite of the title Don Carlos gave to this thread, I can assure readers that this issue is not part of "everyday life" for most Expats in Ecuador.
source: ns.umich.edu
cccmedia in Quito
Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate it. I'm sort of new here on this site and am not yet familiar how we do things. Yes, I agree, this is definitely not an everyday thing for most expats, however I did not want to use the subject line and say something like "what do you do about vampire bats?". obviously that would be scary so I used everyday life which is a forum category. Sorry if I offended anyone.
The light idea works very well but sometimes there are non scheduled shutdowns of the electricity.
Oh well, Live and Learn. Asi es mi Ecuador! Thanks again. Don Carlitos
DonCarlos wrote:Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate it....The light idea works very well but sometimes there are non scheduled shutdowns of the electricity.
Keep as much light as you can on the calf's area. Find out if a backup generator is a possibility.
Stay the course, Batman 
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