Ethereal loves mealtime! Even the small feeding syringe looks big next to the tiny bat. (illustration credit 5.1)
Like magic, Ethereal made friends with Amanda. “Bats are very smart,” she said. “They may be as smart as dolphins. Ethereal knew we wanted to help her. She got used to us right away. She is a sweet, sweet little bat. Ethereal is shy with new people, but most bats are.”
Close friendship is healthy for a bat. But being friends with just one person can be dangerous, too. That person might have to go away. A new person might come instead.
“If we don’t prepare the bats for the change, they might stop eating,” Amanda explained.
Food made the friendship between Amanda and Ethereal stronger. Like the bat’s mother, Amanda was taking care of the little bat, and Ethereal knew it.
In the wild, Mexican free-tailed bats eat insects. Those insects eat flowers and fruits and vegetables. So, eating those bugs is a little like eating fruits and vegetables, too. The vitamins in those bugs make them good meals for bats.
Ethereal and the other bats at Bat World stay inside in huge rooms called flying cages. The bats can fly and play, chat and sleep, but they don’t hunt for wild insects. Wild bugs aren’t allowed in the flying cages because some could make the bats sick. So, Amanda makes healthy food for them.
“Bats that never really ate in the wild are given a soft food diet,” Amanda said. “This includes mealworm guts.”
The mealworms are full of vitamins and protein. They give bats lots of energy to swoop and soar. The Bat World workers use 200,000 mealworms every month to feed the bats.
Amanda makes sure every bat gets plenty to eat—just enough to make them healthy. But Ethereal has a favorite.
“She loves peaches,” Amanda said. “She’s excited when peaches are in the mix.” She slurps up the sticky stuff especially fast when her favorite food is served.
Some bats are fed food in feeding dishes. The dishes are piled high with mealworms and ripe fruits like berries and peaches. The bats gather at the dishes to eat.
Other bats like Ethereal are fed by hand. Volunteers measure vitamins, worm guts, fruit, and vegetables. Then they mash them up with a blender. Amanda fills a syringe (sounds like ser-INGE) with the tasty goo. It’s dinner time!
One at a time, Amanda gathers each bat into her left hand. She squeezes very carefully to hold it firmly. The bat puts its tiny, wrinkled lips on the syringe to eat.
With her right hand, Amanda slowly squirts the food into the bat’s hungry mouth. The bat gobbles up the mixture. Amanda is very careful not to go too quickly. Too much food at one time could choke the bat. Also, she doesn’t want to get food in the bat’s tiny nose. When she’s done, Amanda wipes each dirty little face.
It takes time to feed each bat by hand. But hand-feeding helps the bats learn to trust the caretakers.
Do the little bats like being hand fed? Amanda thinks so.
“At feeding times, we slip the bats into carriers. We call them ‘bat huts,’ ” Amanda said. They move the bat huts filled with bats to the feeding room. If Amanda places the bat huts in the cages early, something amazing happens.
“They will load themselves into the bat huts,” Amanda said. They know bat-hut time means mealtime!
Ethereal was not fed with the other bats at first. She was not allowed near any other animals. She was kept apart until Amanda knew she was healthy. If Ethereal were sick, she could make other bats sick, too.
Luckily, Ethereal was fine. The tiny bat’s new life could begin. She had already started to eat better. She was getting her strength back.
More About Mexican Free-tailed Bats
In June, Mexican free-tailed bat mothers have tiny babies called pups. Each mother usually has one baby.
The mammal pup drinks its mother’s milk. After it eats, the pup sleeps away from its mother. Hundreds of pups sleep together in one small space. Then the mothers leave to hunt for bugs.
How do mothers find their babies when they return? A mother can tell her pup by its voice and its familiar smell.
The next step was moving Ethereal to her new home. How bats live depends on what kind of bat they are.
“Tree bats live alone,” Amanda said. “They mind their own business. Crevice bats are social. They get sad when they are alone.”
“Ethereal is a crevice bat,” Amanda said. “She needs friends.”
Ethereal was placed in a cage with many other bats of her own kind. The other bats took a little getting used to.
So, Amanda gave Ethereal a safe place of her own—a basket on the floor of the huge cage. From the basket, she could watch the other bats. She could get out of the nest if she wanted to make new friends. She could stay in if she was feeling shy. Amanda didn’t rush Ethereal. She let her make friends when she was ready, so she wouldn’t be afraid.
Soon Ethereal got used to the other bats. She spent more and more time playing with them. She chattered in little squeaks and clicks and hisses, and flew with them. She was learning more about them. She was becoming part of the colony.