We'll start with the good news … Poison MIGHT work to kill off a colony of bats. That's pretty much as good as it gets, sadly. It might work. It might not. That's where the good news stops. We'll move onto the bad news … Poisoning bats is a bad idea for a very long list of reasons. To start with, you can't guarantee which animal will eat the poison. There isn't a registered poison that you can legally use for bats. (It is also illegal pretty much everywhere.) That means you'll need to rely on poison that has been created for another animal or purpose, such as rats.



When you use rat poison, you're using something that has been designed to ATTRACT rats. The taste, smell, everything about the stuff is meant to lure rodents in, get them to eat enough of it to take effect, and then die. Sadly, rat poison doesn't even work for rats and mice, so there's a very good chance that it won't work on the bats in your attic. It might attract rats and mice, though. That's something you probably didn't prepare for, and we're sure you're not totally equipped to try and get rid of bats and rodents at the same time. Not many homeowners would be.

If the bats don't eat the poison, your cat might, or the dog. Or your kids if they can get their hands on it. If the bats do eat the poison, things get ugly.

Let's get talking about the ugly …
If a bat eats poison and then becomes unwell, the roost might kick it out. It'll be sick so it won't be able to fly well, or even at all, and that means it'll likely be just laying on the floor, waiting for your dog to come along and eat it.

What if it does?
Bats can have rabies, so your dog (or other household pet) has potentially just been infected with the virus. Bats can also have such high concentrations of poison in their bodies, that the animal that then eats them suffers with secondary poisoning too. If a dog eats a poisoned bat, it might become very sick. It might even die.

If the bat isn't kicked from the roost for being unwell, or a large number of bats become sick from the poison, you'll have an entire colony of dead or dying bats hanging around. You'll need to clear them away, unless you want to wait fo the bad smell to start luring in scavengers and let them do the job. Just like rat poison will attract rats, the scent of a decomposing body will attract scavengers — rats, mice, opossums, skunks, raccoons, wolves, foxes, coyotes … Need we continue? Dead bats will attract flies, maggots, cockroaches, other bugs and beetles that feast on the flesh. Those dead rats can still have whatever disease threats they had when they were alive too, including rabies which can lie dormant in the moist body tissue of a dead animal for sometime.

Using poison to get rid of bats is not usually going to have quite the outcome you had hoped for. We definitely urge against using this approach to rid your attic or home of a bat colony.

Go back to the Bat Removal home page or email us for more info about Bats & Poison: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly