Minimum Thickness of your Nesting Wood !!!

I still remember this special remarks made by a Contractor/Consultant who visited one of the SMC member's house in Port Klang..

I called the member and asked how he was doing. He says fined and he excitedly told me that he took a Consultant/Contractor to have a look at his under performed swiftlet house.

This person, a few minutes after looking at the two floors, told him that he got everything in his head how to improve the house. He guaranteed that the birds will come back within 3 months ....

So the house owner asked him can he know what were required to be done? His answer: "Well you appoint me to be the contractor I will do the necessary. I am not going to tell you what they are".

From my personal view, this is the most common type of consultant that you will always come across. Once they know that you know very little about swiftlet farming, they will take advantage of your weakness.

So BEWARE of these unscrupolous people and of course it is better that you upgrade your knowledge to the highest level so that no body will not play you out.....

What you need is to find some one that is willing to write a recommendations of all the things that he observed and list them professionally for you to study and take the necessary actions.

He will also recommend to you how and what can be done to correct those problems. He will also discuss with you intelligently so that you will not make the same mistakes in your next birdhouse construction.

Okay coming back to what is the ideal nesting plank thickness, the answer is not less then 2cm (0.787 inch) but preferabably 3 cm (1.181 inch). If your plank is too thick (more then 3 cm), you will actually waste to much of your precious nesting space plus fact the the total tonnage of wood will jump up the roof (more costly).

The reason being, if it is too thin, the vibration caused by another bird landing on the same plank will be very annoying and perhaps might cause the eggs or the baby birds to drop from the affected nests.

The plank must be installed upright with a 90* angle of its corners and no air gap with the ceiling. Trust me, air gaps will never bring any birds to make their nest on the affected plank. They hates air blowing through the gap above their head.

For those areas where you wanted to place a two or three steps arrangement, the top layer must be thicker then those as the second and the third tiers. They are necessary in order to avoid birdshits from dropping into those lower tier's nests.