What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

GUANO - DOES IT GO BAD?

AOD2012

I have the key, now i need to find the lock..
Veteran
Morning everyone. So the thread title really asks it all. I had to take a few year hiatus from my life's true passion lol, but I finally am going to have some time in the next few months to get back started.

That being said - I have had a good amount of guano I purchased right before I had to stop that has been sitting for 3 years plus.

Does it go bad? I personally can't really tell much of a difference from when I originally purchased it, but my memory may be playing tricks on me haha.

Let me know, I appreciate any response. Thanks in advance.

aod
 

Easy7

Active member
Veteran
I dunno, do fossils go bad? It's fossilized guano. Suppose it could get wet and rancid. As long as it's dry it lasts forever.
 

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
Guano might already be 'BAD' for you.

Guano Related Concerns

It's true, bats can carry and transmit disease, you can get Hystoplasmosis from Guano, about 1% of bats carry rabies and some may even carry lice.
However, looking at the big picture, these odds are small and bats are more beneficial than harmful - as long as they're not in buildings.

Hystoplasmosis

Regarding Guano, Hystoplasmosis can be a scare with bats at times - but in a building, as opposed to a cave, it is not typically a concern.
This is because the right conditions must be present to produce the fungus. For instance, Guano generally needs to come into contact with the ground and exist in a dark and humid or damp environment before it becomes a suitable host for the hystoplasmosis fungus to grow.

Since caves provide a perfect atmosphere for hystoplasmosis to thrive, the disease is often referred to as "cave disease" or "spelunker's lung".
`
So, if you lived in a damp cave or in the wet, humid sewer systems of a large city, we would be more concerned, but not as concerned when talking about the hot dry attic or ceiling of a building.

To illustrate the risk, you can see from the following sequence what would need to occur and how it "might" lead to contracting Hystoplasmosis:
Guano could produce a mold, particularly in damp conditions.
That mold might produce a fungus.
That fungus might produce a spore.
That spore might produce hystoplasmosis.
You might breathe in the spore carrying hystoplasmosis.
The spore might give you ocular hystoplasmosis.

The hystoplasmosis might kill you.

As you can see from the above sequence, concerns regarding guano and hystoplasmosis are typically overstated and unfounded.
If you have found a few pieces of guano, or even a five inch pile, on top of your outdoor coffee table, you have likely gone online to learn more.

And, if you look hard enough on the internet, you will find plenty of info about bat guano causing respiratory disorders that will kill you.

If you want to be terrified, you will likely need to go to another website.
Our mission is not to scare you into using our services, but rather it is to educate and inform you - so you can make smart, accurate decisions.

Even though Hystoplasmosis is not a likely threat under most conditions you would find inside your home, it is still possible to become infected, and it is still a serious respiratory disorder that can kill you. It is important to know the facts so you can take the proper safety precautions.

Just because a home, church or place of business isn't a cave, doesn't mean that it can't be affected by bat guano related histoplasmosis.
If you describe a smell in your building similar to the smell of a ripe cat litter box or ammonia, we would be concerned, and so should you.

Most of the time, if guano presents any sort of health risk, it is typically in an older building and is usually in a church, fire department, or commercial property. However, newer homes are not immune, one of the worst homes we ever saw or smelled was only a mere 9 years old.

This does not mean that we have not walked into homes without cats that smelled like a litter box just the same, and strongly suggested removing all of the insulation, and treated it like a hazardous material situation; but this is uncommon. Out of hundreds of homes in the past decade that we have searched to find bats, we have encountered only 3 homes that needed to have insulation removed and just 13 businesses, yet to date.
Evict the bats and clean up as much guano as possible is the mission.

Guano Clean Up And Attic Restoration

The fact of the matter is, a little bit of guano on the ground or in your attic is not going to hurt you, and it certainly won't kill you in most circumstances. If a wildlife control professional insists that you remove all of your attic insulation because of just a little bit of guano being sprinkled on top of it, a red flag should be raised in your mind and we suggest you get a second opinion, as well as question their professionalism.
However, if you have a house that smells like a nasty cat litter box, and you have no cats, and you know that you have bats, you could indeed have a guano problem on your hands. This because under normal, dry conditions, bat guano doesn't really smell. The droppings would likely have to accumulate in mass amounts and become saturated with bat urine to create such a strong smell.

So, by the time it has accumulated enough to create a strong odor, you could indeed have a potential health hazard in place.

This is another good reason to let a professional do the job, a qualified company should have the proper equipment to go in and safely clean up the mess properly with the potential safety and health risks in check.

Bat jobs complicated by serious guano issues can generate a price tag from $3,000 to $53,000 - and those are typical, legitimate charges. So you will want to find a wildlife control company that will do the job right.

The process of getting the house fixed to get rid of bats is called bat eviction. The process of making it so that once the bats fly out that they cannot re-enter, is called a bat exclusion.
Exclusion for one bat or 1,000 bats is the same amount of work because the home modifications are not dependent on the size of the bat colony, they are dependent on the construction and number of entrances and exits.
Proper exclusion repairs are important because a bat eviction is totally worthless if all the evicted bats have to do to get back in is fly into your attic or chimney from an alternate source on the other side of the building.

As expensive as bat jobs can be, if your house does not smell like a cat litter box due to bat guano and urine, we will typically encourage you to not spend thousands of dollars to remove and sanitize all of the insulation.

Instead, we prefer to treat your pocket book as though it was our own and will encourage you to have us address any light smells with an un-scented, natural and non toxic product which will encapsulate and begin to destroy any organic matter.
Beneficial Uses For Guano

Guano can actually be beneficial in some cases, and its uses can even be found in some surprising places.

For instance, did you know that bat guano is a very common ingredient in women's mascara. Of course, unlike the guano you may find on the ground outside your home, it has been sterilized and sanitized.

Throughout history bat guano has been used as a source of saltpetre (potassium nitrate) for the production of gun powder.

During the Civil War, soldiers often depended on the guano found in bat caves to make gun powder on demand when assistance and supply lines were cut off by opposing forces.

And, bat guano is rich in beneficial concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Consequently, it has been used successfully for hundreds of years as an organic fertilizer. It contains microbes which are beneficial to plants and soil. And, guano based fertilizers also have fungicidal properties that help protect growing plants from harmful fungi.

http://totalwildlifecontrol.com/critter-facts-control/bats/diseases/
 

EasyGoing

Member
No, it doesn't go bad. However you leave it in the sun for a long time it will lose it's potency. It degrades like anything else.
 

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
Histoplasmosis is an infection caused by a fungus called Histoplasma. The fungus lives in the environment, particularly in soil that contains large amounts of bird or bat droppings. In the United States, Histoplasma mainly lives in the central and eastern states, especially areas around the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. The fungus also lives in parts of Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

People can get histoplasmosis after breathing in the microscopic fungal spores from the air. Although most people who breathe in the spores don’t get sick, those who do may have a fever, cough, and fatigue. Many people who get histoplasmosis will get better on their own without medication, but in some people, such as those who have weakened immune systems, the infection can become severe.
 

EasyGoing

Member
Never mind, no, not all Guano's are fossilized. N dom guanos are, as the N leaches out during the fossil process.

So to answer your question, use your guano. If anything, it might be slightly less effective than the MPK ratio on the bag. Guanos can be very old when harvested, I am sure another three years properly stored is just fine, with very little denigration.
 

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
I remember once being in a boat going on a tour of 'The Underground River' on the island of Palawan, and noticing the thousands of sleeping bats above us that would piss on your head if you were not wearing the compulsory plastic builders helmets...so they pissed on your helmet anyway.

Looking around in there, thru narrow canals and HUGE cathedral like structures I noticed great big piles of bat-shit, some so big you would need a bulldozer to move them, or even dynamite.

I guess that the batshit waaaay down at the bottom of the pile might be the fossilized stuff, and the stuff near the top would be much more fresh....lol
 

AOD2012

I have the key, now i need to find the lock..
Veteran
Thanks for all the quick responses.

Gypsy - going to research this Histoplasmosis myself, now you got me a little paranoid lol.

Happy to see you posting! I was offline for so long I had no idea all the crap you have been going through.

Thanks again to all!

aod
 

Gypsy Nirvana

Recalcitrant Reprobate -
Administrator
Veteran
Thanks for all the quick responses.

Gypsy - going to research this Histoplasmosis myself, now you got me a little paranoid lol.

Happy to see you posting! I was offline for so long I had no idea all the crap you have been going through.

Thanks again to all!

aod

Batshit (Guano) is a great natural fertilizer, and I have seen good results from its use in many a garden....I'm sure few gardeners actually contract histoplasmosis. But it is something to be aware of.
If you are using the dry guano then best wear a mask when handling it, so as not to breath any of it in....
 

EasyGoing

Member
For the record, a simple dust mask will keep the bad guano bugs out. No need for a respirator, a dust mask works just fine.
 
Top