Optimum Number of Swiftlets Occupying Your BH !!!

How do you estimate the total number of birds that can occupy your BH?

Many of you do have some kind of methods to measure but there are many newbies who have never given their though about it.

In the first place do you need to know about it?

My frank opinion is yes.

You know why?

Because by knowing the maximum number of birds that can occupy your BH you will be able to plan ahead about what you want to do when they are going to be fully occupied.

Yes you might want to start building one more unit beside the present to harvest the next group of your baby birds who will be turning into adults.

The best method in calculating the number of birds that can occupy your BH is by using this rule of the thumb. Every square meter of those nesting planks, 30cm by 100 cm boxes, when full will generate about 100 nests of 10 cm each (approximately).

Example: If your BH is 20 feet by 70 feet, the total square feet will be 1,400. In square meters you divide by 10 so the total area is 140 square meters per floor. For two floors you should have about 280 square meters.

If you deduct about 10% due to staircase, toilet, data room and entrance hole area, you will have at least 250 square meters.

This will result is about 250 x 100=25,000 nests per season.

The maximum number of birds will be about 25,000 X 2 = 50,000 birds.

I assume that they will not be occupying those cement walls and the staircase areas.

So with this figure, 50,000 swiftlets, in hand you can keep a close tab on how fast your BH is performing.

You might want to carry out a monthly check on the number of nests that increases every month.

Assuming that they are increasing at the rate of 20%, you can easily tabulate how long it will take for the figure of 50,000 birds or 25,000 nests will reach.

With this simple tool you can plan ahead as to when you should precisely set up you next BH or expand your current BH.

Note: The above example is a good rule of the thumb. In actual environment, the number of birds are not 2 per nest. It can be as high as 2.5 or 3 per nest. These are due to those young birds who have yet to start building their own nests or maybe those gay birds who wan to remain bachelor. I choose 2 because it is much easier to understand by any layman.