I attended the GAPH seminar and I remembered what was indicated by one of the honorable speaker who would like to see that harvesting be done with little or no stress created to the birds.
Hmm hmm hmm ..............
Yes of course that will be ideal. But will that be the most economical to the owner?
To a person who never owned any birdhouse or perhaps never invest a penny into a birdhouse venture, it is okay to make his own interpretation on how best one should harvest their birdnests.
For those who operate swiftlet farming, I believed there must be a proper method on how to maximise their income while ensuring that the number of birds will multiply every year within a range of 10% (minimum) and 40% (maximum). Any amount lower then 10%, volume of increase per year, is a dissaster.
So what will be the best Harvesting Methods and How can one archieve the set multiply target?
Let us evaluate the various types of harvesting techniques that are commonly practise by many birdhouse owners.
There are actualy three types of harvesting techniques:
1) Steal the nest before any eggs are being laid.
This technique is said to be the most attractive to every farmer. This is due to the high quality of nests that you will get. They are the cleanest among the three methods since they have yet to be used. The price you can sell to any raw nests buyer is the highest.
Once the nests are harvested, the bird will quickly build a new nest to meet their natural call to bring up a family. They will lay then lay eggs and breed. The amount of stress is medium.
2) Steal the nest when two eggs are laid.
This technique is carried out by was of harvesting the nest immediately after the second eggs were laid. The nest are slightly dirty as compared to the nest harvesting in 1) but their value are slightly less then a clean nest.
This method in actual sense will create a big stress to the birds since both their nest and eggs are taken away and the birds will either start to build a new nest or will move away to a new house.
Note: Never ever harvest your birdnest when there is only one egg in it. You need to realise that there is another egg in the female bird. If she do not have a nest to lay the second egg you might never see her again !!!
3) You harvest after the baby birds fly away from the nest.
This is the best techniques since you now have a new set of young birds who will potentially nest in your birdhouse. This young birds will be the one that will provide the 10% multiply figure of your yearly harvest nests.
The only disadvantage is that the nest are dirty and will fetch a much cheaper price. The other disadvantage is that you can only harvest three times using this technique and this is not giving an optimum returns from your birdhouse investment.
So how do you optimise your nests harvesting operation?
The best way is to combine the above three techniques where you selectively carry out the type 1), 2) and 3).
Ideally you must first ensure that the 10% (minimum) multiplification factor is met.
Once that is done, you now can perform the nest stealing techniques with proper planning so that you will minimise the stress on those birds that might run away to find a new home.
The most crucial is when the total number of birdnests in your birdhouse is below 500.
Again it is your birdhouse and you have the right to harvest nests to your liking.
To me the best is to set a kind of objectives which will help you to populate your birdhouse as fast as possible but at the same time you need to gain an optimal returns for all the investments that you have invested in the house .......
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