These days, to extract the genome sequences of viruses from such samples, a scientist would employ a process called next-generation sequencing (NGS). This generates hundreds of thousands of mixed puzzle pieces, called ‘reads’. These reads have to be carefully pieced together to see which puzzles (genomes) can be more or less completed. Unless you have a great deal of a particular virus in your bat faecal sample, there will often be gaping holes and regions of uncertainty that need checking.
