AIBU to have kept an injured bat in the fridge?

[thatbatwoman]

Name changed for this obvs, but having seen 2 bat threads in recent days, I thought I'd share my tale...and to show how times have really changed!

In the early 90's we lived out in the stix and had what was considered then, a rare (ish) colony of Natturas bats in the attic. Every year the Bat Man would put a tarp down in the attic and at the end of the season, would come back to monitor the droppings, see if they'd increased! We would often see random men with binoculars sitting on the wall outside the house, eager to spot them.

One day, I looked out of the window to see a bat circling in daylight and then fall to the ground. I rang the Bat Man,who gave me the following advice to care for it til he arrived:
1)Scoop it up into a box (i can't remember if I even wore gloves!)
2)Add a pair of tights or stockings
3) Add dog food, if we had any (which we did)
4And then..........take all the food out and...PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just did it without question and can remember peeping inside the fridge at one point before he arrived and seeing it crawling over the side walls!!!!

Having read the last 2 bat / rabies threads, I seriously questioned my recollection of what was really a very clear event. I was much younger and a bit daft. So I clicked the AI mode last night and asked whether this was likely back then....and indeed, this would have been the advice to care for a grounded bat in the early 90's!!!!!!

I guess my question would be AIBU....to have put a bat in my fridge?????!!!

I’m no expert on bats and what environment they need, but I would not have thought to put an animal in the fridge. Happy for someone to tell me that they need that level of cold but… an animal in the fridge? Don’t know about that.

Not if that's what the advice was!

I suppose a fridge is a cool, dark contained space. It sounds cold, but bats would be used to those temperatures over the winter, so it would mimic their favoured environment.

If that was the professional information you were given at the time, I don't see what else you could've done?

This. Of course you followed the advice given.

This is very funny!! Those bat threads were verrrrry serious, I much prefer this one.

I thought that too! I expected to need to place it somewhere warm. But apparently, bats like to be somewhere cold.

I know I did what he asked back then, so that's not unreasonable. It was more a case of WHAT did I do again?!! Surely not!

I hope this wasn't a fridg with human food in. I have an old fridge in garage I only use at Xmas for additional drinks. I would never use one we had our food in.

Some people do this with tortoise to make them hibernate.

Doesn't the tortoise get woken up every time the door opens and the light comes on?

Just glad you are still alive 😨😵

Apparently, opening the door for a quick peek, is what perked the bat up as it reacted to the light. And yes, this was our normal fridge in the kitchen, that I cleaned afterwards!!! Madness!

Hibernation is very deep sleep, they don’t wake unless they’re gradually warmed up. It’s quite an involved process to get them down and back up again. You need to open the fridge door daily to refresh the air. I don’t think it’s recommended to put them in a food fridge though, usually a seperate on specifically for the job.

I'm impressed by your restraint calling him the Bat Man... XD

Imagine if your fridge malfunctioned and he froze.

I used to keep my tortoise in the fridge over winter when hibernating. Albeit not the food fridge lol. We had a fridge in the garage specificity for the tortoise.

I don't know, but I'm sure when I was a child dumped fridges were a safety concern because children out playing could get trapped inside and suffocate. Have I imagined that?

Presumably the bat didn't suffocate?

We found one a few years ago, bag rescue told us to put it in a shoebox, which we did .. then let it out the next evening. It survived fine. No Rabies

Ideally, I'd have had a designated bat fridge, but used the only one available. The bat seemed much better when Batman arrived to collect him.

I remember an episode of casualty where the kid got stuck in the fridge. I was around the same age as the child at the time and it made me scared of fridges 😂
Also tractors as there was an episode where a farmers foot got lopped off by the combine harvester or something.

Anyway, sorry, bats. I only saw one thread but it was a bit too much drama for me so I dropped out. I like yours.

Was the bat eventually ok?

So the bat was ok? 🤞🏻

Yes, the bat had dramatically improved. I thought it was on the way out when I saw it drop outside,seemed stunned, but it was moving around and behaving more appropriately when Batman arrived.

I couldn't believe the previous level of concern about bat contact in the previous thread, but I googled it and posters seem correct in their concern. Like you, I have occasionally had to scoop up bats that have entered my premises, no gloves just a tea towel, and thankfully lived to tell the tale!
It does seem like there is only one death in the UK linked to bats (in 2002) but obviously, even that is one too many.

God, I wish bag rescue was a thing. So many unwanted bags in my house.