Interesting Trip To Kota Bahru and Kuala Krai Kelantan !!!

A very interesting field trip to Kelantan.

If not because of the non stop rain pouring from yesterday afternoon till today's evening, the trip might have been more interesting.

One of the best observation was those birdhouses belonging to Mr John Chen of Sarawak. I was made to understand that he owned more then 80 BHs and nearly all are doing very well. In Setiawan and Manjung he owned at least 10 BHs. All are in fact doing very well. Some says that his monthly harvests is in the multiple of10th million.

It seem that Mr John now is moving his investment attention to Cambodia. A new, virgin and exciting markets.

Another observation that I wish to share with all is the quality of cleanliness around John's BHs. They are tip top clean, with all the walls painted and anchored with security on full time. The volume of sound played are very soft not like others.

Each of his BH will be with a family apartment for his caretaker to stay and most of them are Sarawak origin. I don't blame him because he is from Sarawak.

While doing the walk around the BH met a lady who owned a BH just beside John Chen's unit.

She owned a sizable building which currently house the Smart Reader educational system for young kids. A pretty lady and I have a pretty long chat with her.

SMART READER CO OWNER IN KOTA BAHRU. HER BH ARE THE THREE STORIES ABOVE THE SMART READER.

I asked her how was the Smart Reader lessons been doing to those young birds occupying the three floors above her training center?

She answered: "Harry all those young swiftlets are very well behaved and intelligent. He he he...."

Must be the smartest swiftlet colony in the country, I told her.

It seem that she met Mr John Chen on many occasions with her husband. A very nice gentlemen and John was offering her with a very good offer for her to part the nice building but she refused.

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL BH OWNER IN MALAYSIA MR JOHN CHEN.

Currently she do collect a sizable harvests every three to four months but nothing compared to John.

Hasliza, how much is John harvesting?

"Harry I am not sure but I think might be a couple of 100Ks or a million" she answered. "Main reason being John's building is pretty fully occupied. I am just getting the spillover of those young birds."

"Harry any thing that you think I should do to accelerate the population?"

I am not very sure since I haven't finished doing my inspection of John's BH but I think you should follow John's entrance hole configuration. His is using the top entry and yours is side entry. You see your main target are the young birds from John's BH. If they are familiar with top entry then you should make them feel at home by using the top entry design. I am not asking you to shut the side entrance hole which you are having now but try to make another entry.

"Okay Harry you make a good sense and I will look into that. Thanks you for stopping by."

At 4 pm stop at one new BH which have difficulties in getting those birds in. The shop house was about 50 meters from John BH. I told him with his close proximity to John BH there is no need to consider the flight path any longer. His main aim is to get his BH in a tip top condition in order to attract those 300% of young birds every year from John's BHs.

Spend about 30 minutes to evaluate the internals and it's entrance hole. Told the owner what to do and where to relocate the entrance hole.

Since he has very little idea about swiftlets, I have little difficulties to convince him on the best ways to bring those birds into his BH.

I promised to provide a proper write ups on what he needed to modify. Once accepted those modifications works can start by next week.

FRONT VIEW OF JOHN'S CHEN BH IN KOTA BAHRU

SIDE VIEW OF JOHN CHEN'S BH