The Boys

In the bigger cage I have "The Boys". As I mentioned before, I pretty much solely keep the boys, and the Madison rehabbers keep the girls. These bats I term "The Boys" include some of my first bats that I ever got in for rehabbing, and include others that I got more recently.

Vleer, Vicious, Abe, and Bale are in the 6'x4'x6' cage. Maybe that's silly since they can't fly, but I like to give them room. Boys don't always get along together, since they normally don't form colonies, so I try to give them space,. After all, they are here for the rest of their lives. They were fighting at times and more space is better. Ledger was in there as well, however, sadly, he died a few weeks ago. I opened up the cage to feed them and he was face-down, in one of the 3 water dishes. He and Bale came in together in October of 2008. They were friends and were together the most. Now Bale has reformed alliances and is always huddled with the others in the cage.

One never knows exactly what happened to cause a bat's death, unless there is some obvious trauma, like a cat mauling, or broken wing due to a shutter injury. Some die of old age, some of intestinal blockage, some of pesticide poisoning. It is very unlikely that he just drowned, though.