Today is another good day for me especially in my involvement in swiftlet farming.
I was busy in the morning with my document imaging business and someone wanted to meet me in Puchong, Selangor. So picked up a friend and proceeded to Puchong.
Just before I arrived, there was a call from a Lady. Wow, now I think I am very popular with swiftlet farming.
Her name is Shima and she wanted to talk to me immediately about my bird nest experiences. Told he to meet me within 30 minutes at IOI mall.
After my other meeting, Shima walks in with her hubby, Mizan.
Our introduction was short and briefs. She told me what she wanted:
“Harry, my father has a piece of land in Merbok, Bedong, Kedah, about 2 kilometers from the sea front. He wanted me to look at building a birdhouse on that piece of land. What is your best advice?"
Firstly, I told her that for what ever reason she has, the most important thing for her to do is to conduct a birdcall test. A bird call test will determine the viability of the project. If the test resulted in a sizable number of birds, more then 100 birds, then she can go to the next step. If the result is poor, less then 20 birds, she need to opt either to redo the test by using a new birdcall sound or test it on the next day, perhaps this time in the morning. If that also failed, then she has to either abandon the idea or do another test with another bird call sound.
The impression that I wanted her to understand fully is that there is no use to build a house when there is no tenant to come in and stays. I stressed to her that there are so many failed birdhouses just because they did not carry out the bird call test.
Assuming that the birdcall test passed with flying colors, now she needs to proceed with the next step. I told her to visit the nearest local council and talk to the officer in charge on building bird nest house on her father's agricultural land. Let the officer advise the rules and regulations that need to be followed.
Once that is cleared with no hiccup, she should now look into getting a proper design expert that can view her piece of land, the size, shape, type of land and direction of the sun.
It would be very though full if the land be properly utilized where the first house be situated at the right corner and any future expansion will maximize the utilization of the rest of the land.
I also stressed that for the first house make sure the direction of the sun comes into the front of the house not the side. This will reduce the square area of the wall absorbing the hot sun.
Minimum size should be 15 feet by 40 feet and at least two stories high.
To reduce cost they can consider using rejected bricks that are not suitable for normal houses.
Internally, the roofing materials she should try to use Meranti planks that are already built with special groove for swiftlet to grip when resting or building of their nest.
On the ground floor they should consider to build a small room that will allow them to use as store for sound system placement and storing of ladder, boxes, and harvested nests.
While doing the wooden roofing, wiring works must be properly done to ensure that electrical cable are laid to ensure that those tweeters will be ready to be connected to the amplifier plus DVD players.
The bird entrance should be placed on the roof top. There is no need to make any roof but a flat roof type with a dog house swiftlet entrance and a water pool.
She asked: " What are the list of things that we need to install in the birdhouse?"
As far as I know these are the essentials:
1) A good sound system complete with tweeters, amplifier, music players (2 sets) and a set of birdcall sound for external and internal usage.
2) A good outlay of wooden roofing for the bird to built their nest. Use suitable wood that are ready with grooves if possible. Avoid 90 degree corners.
3) A humidifier for each floor connected to a sensor what will allow the room humidity be regulated.
4) Place a fluorescent light on each floor to be used only during harvesting of nests.
5) A tool set for harvesting inclusive of a ladder to reach the wooden frame, scrapper to harvest the nest and torch light. Well I also keep a plastic container with tight cover to keep harvested nests.
Her next question was: “How much is the cost to build a birdhouse?"
Well this is a very tricky question. My answer is, it varies from one individual to another. Depending on the size of the house, the height, the material used, the sound system that were selected and the wood that U used plus the consultation fee, it can be around RM100,000 to RM250,000.
Her hubby quipped: “Harry, can we build the house using wood?'
My answer, there is no reason why U cannot however U need to make sure that the area U built is not infested with white ants. The room temperature and humidity might be a bit difficult to control and at the same time the wooden structure is easily breakable.
Well I guess the one hour with them have been very informative and I am sure they need more back up information soon.
Good luck to both of them and I looked forward to hear more from them.
Who knows, one day they will be a successful bird nest farmers!!!
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