How Big Should My New BH Be?

During one of my birdcall outing I was asked by the land owner about the ideal size of BH that he should built.

"Harry, I wanted to built a BH about 40 feet by 140 feet on this piece of land. Can you advise your thought about the idea?".

Why so big?

Is it wise to invest in just one place?

Why can't he distribute his investment in more then one place?

Before I answered I asked a few sensible questions and I know that he was so excited about it. Must be very careful not to make him feel offended.

I asked: Do you have any other piece of land?

His answer: Yes I do have one more in this town somewhere in Johore.

Hmm...... I tried to be cool and wanted him to firstly be logical.

Why can't he spread his risks by splitting the 40 feet by 140 feet (He was thinking of this dimension) to 2 units of 30 feet by 60 feet BHs?

In wanting him to consider my frank opinion I told him to conduct the same birdcall test in the other piece of land in Johore. My idea is to spread the risk so that if one is not doing well he has the other to return his heavy investments.

One of the core lesson in swiftlet farming is to know that all that you need is one successful BH.

Say that you have 5 BHs and all the four are not doing well while one is doing very well, I would say that you are already successful.

With one successful the other four is no longer a heavy burden since you have enough harvest to service/pay those mortgages or loans that you took from your dad or your wife.

What is important now is to improve the successful unit, like increasing their nesting areas, and perhaps consider to sell those that you feel are not doing that well.

How do you know that they are not doing so well?

Simple, just monitor their growth every month.

If their numbers, I mean new nests, is stagnant for more then three to four months you know that the birds are not coming in. This BH is not doing well.

If your bird nest count keep increasing, say 8-10% a month, the house is doing well.

By selling those that are not doing well you might want to relocate your BH location at a more appropriate location which you know will be more easy to increase those precious nests.

You learn from experiences and this time around you have to avoid from making silly mistakes.

Choose the right locations.

Make sure the number of birds in the area is large enough to ensure you rip the benefits in the shortest possible time.