About one month ago I received this sad sms message from someone whose birdhouse was summon for RM25,000.
Oh blind me .....
I have never heard such drastic measures by any local council in Peninsular Malaysia and this was way too much. The Ketua Pengarah of the Local Council must be out of his mind or maybe the night before he did not get his wife to release those toxic chemical in his body system.
I feel very bad and it seem that a total of 22 BH owners in Besut town were asked to stop operation with immediate effect.
I replied by saying that I am in no position to give a helping hand but did a short report to Uncle Reduan at Putra Jaya.
He was very suprise too.
While in Kelatan I took my tour guide down to Besut and met with the person affected.
He was so glad to see me and he gathered a few of his elders to have a short word with me. Most of these elders do have their own BHs.
Immediately after that short introduction I was invited to take a good look at his BH and I have little choice but to run up to see how to improve the BH.
The BH design was absurd and hot and dry and floor made of wood and those windows are closed to wide opened and those entrance holes were too small and those roving areas were to small and so and so and so....
Nothing seem to be perfect but there were so many birds in the house. So this is something that we alway says that in swiftlet farming one plus one is never two.
Well I told him that it could be better if he can resolve a few important basics.
1) The house is just too hot and too dry.
The thermo hygrometer was showing a maximum temperature of 31.9*C and the humidity minimum was 75%. He need to quickly find a remedy to encourage those birds to stay.
2) The ventilation holes uses normal windows with wooden cover to deflect those light.
The amount of outside air entering the house was way to much. This was the main reason why the house was dry and hot. I told him to quickly make changes on the window openings. Try to cover all windows with plastic mat internally and perhaps place a cover, using rattan screen, to avoid direct sunlight into the window.
3)The entrance hole was just too small.
The way the entrance hole was design was a bit odd. It was very small, about 1 foot by 8 inches. The entrance hole monkey house is so small that I am very surprised that those birds still enter the BH. How I wish it can be turn form monkey house to an open roof.
4) There were too many rooms in the BH.
I have entered many BHs and this unit have at least 6 rooms on a floor of 20 feet by 40 feet. He should have removed all those room walls before starting the operating.
5) Change the sound.
I feel good that he did changed the external sound. The new sound that he was playing seem to be doing well with lots of birds playing and bitting the external tweeters.
He was unsure and keep asking me more then three times about it. "Harry is it okay that I change the sound?".
My answer was simple. "Do you want more birds to enter your BH? If yes you need to change the sound once they are no more attracting those birds to you roof top".
6) Number of Tweeters per square meter.
He might be lacking with those humidity, temperature and darkness but he suprised me with the number of tweeter per square meter. I think he have the most tweeters in every square meter. My recommendation is about one but he installed 2 per square meters. I told him that is fantastic.
7) The pigeon seem to disturb his entrance holes.
I told him to shoot those pigeon. If they keep disturbing just put a kind of trap and let them know that you mean business. Never to disturb your BH.
8) He seem to rotate the sound from external with mating.
This is something that I am very fascinated. This guy is brilliant and I think he learned very much from some of his elders. The idea is to rotate the sound from normal external with mating sound at certain time of the day. The birds simply adores those sound combination.
I am looking forward to be in Besut again and the observation is exceptional and interesting.
He allows me to have the two sounds he uses and I am sure they will be very useful to my two BHs.
WINDOW WITH BAMBOO SCREEN TO AVOID DIRECT SUNLIGHT INTO THE BH.
BH OF SAME DESIGN A FEW FEET AWAY.
VERY MANY TWEETERS.
NEST ON ONE OF THE CORNER
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