What Is the Best Width For The Nesting Planks !!!

I am sure all of you, if you are a member of SMC club,have received this short request for information on wooden plank size. Just Read this:

Hi, Si Fu & members,

Happy Chinese New Year !

I am a new member in this club !

Attended a swiftlet course few weeks back and now having keen interest
in swiftlets farming! The speaker in the workshop told us the best
width for the wood plank is 4" (using 1" x 4" meranti) as this width
will yield the best size nests. Plank size wider than 4" will result
in nests of smaller size that will sell at a lower price. I went
through the discussions and read a few books on this, most of them
recommend either 6" or 8"wide planks.

Can someone throw some lights on this ?

I wrote an article a few days ago on what is the best thickness of the wood. Read this: http://swiftletfarming.blogspot.com/2008/02/minimum-thickness-of-your-nesting-wood.html

I gave reasons why and how it will not disturb the birds when they are roosting or incubating the eggs. If it is too thin, the landing of another birds close by or directly opposite side of the plank, will easily cause a kind of vibration that will not be tolerated by the next door neighbor. In some cases the eggs might fall off the nest. If the thickness is too thick then you will waste too much ceiling area plus the tonnage will increase drastically (cost you more).

Unfortunately I did not mentioned that ideal width. My reason being, I wanted to wait for a few more days to come out with a little story to add to my ever growing articles in my blog.

I guess this is the best opportunity to touch on the issue.

Let us talk a bit more why we have wooden nesting planks in out birdhouse. Why must it be wood? How come we are not using cement, plastic, styrofoam, bamboo and etc?

Basically, the explaination that I would like to share with you is something that you already know but they are hidden at the back of your head. You do not realised them but once you read my explaination you will then say " Ya lah, I already know about but it was at the back of my mind".

Okay let me begin:

The main purpose of building your birdhouse is nothing more then to produce Swiftlet Nests. The faster the better. These nest are built by these birds who uses their saliva to stick them to a wall, in this case we call nesting planks. Without these planks the birds will still built them onto anything that they can find like walls, doors,windows, beams, columns, electrical cord, some even the tweeters and etc. These happen very common on an unmanaged house where the birds come coincidently.

So even without these wooden planks they will still produce the nests but they are not significant. Yes you have very little and in order to benefit from this phenomena the best is to install suitable planks on your house ceiling.

More then not swiftlet have the ability to stick their nest to almost any thing. This is because their saliva are very sticky in nature. They can stick on cement, stone, wood and etc. In swiftlet rearing we need to provide suitable planks that provide the right admostphere for the birds to multiply and the nest will be easily glued without any chance of falling off.

Some good charecters of these planks are said to be as follows:

a) Soft enought to allow the birds to use their claws to clig onto it without falling.

b) The wood must be porous enought to absorb the nesting saliva and allow it to dry in a shortes period of time. This will create the nest base on the plank.

c) The wood must also be thick enought to prevent any vibration when the whole colony are flying onto and leaving the plank.

d) Their surface are clean and smooth enought for the birds to cling while resting or nest building.

e) They are strong, dry and their fibers are of strong charecter. They can withstand or prevent mould growth.

f) They are odourless and do not breed any insect in them.

g) They are free from dirt, oil, greese or their own latex.

h) Their construction are easy to manufacture and installation are simple.

i) They are not heavy to handle.

j) Their overall cost is reasonable enought to the birdhouse owner.

Based on the above discriptions, wood is the most ideal and practical as compaired to steel or cement. Both steel and cement their surface are very smooth thus birds have difficulties in cligging onto them.

Again the types of wood must be properly choosen. They can be those of Meranti merah, Teak, Balau, bengkirai and etc. Some suppliers have their owned specially tailored wood treated with ordorless insecticides and mould growth prevention. Some are complete with some aroma liquid applied with grooves built in.

The ideal size and thickness is dependant on the temperature of the birdhouse area. For hot areas (above 27* Centigrade) the ideal is 3cm thick by 15 cm width. For cold areas (below 27* Centigrade) the ideal is 3 cm thick by 20 cm width.

Wooden planks width lesser then 15 cm will greatly affect the nest quality. This is because the nests produced will be darker in color due to the accumulation of bird feathers onto them. You will understand more if you watch vedio clips on the nest building operation from the beginning. Once you see them that you know what I am talking about.

The size of the nests are not governed by the nest wood width. The total admosphere in the nesting room plus, the bird species type and the right season will produce a high quality and heavy nests.

I am sure there are lots more informations need to be written just about wooden planks in a birdhouse .......