Visited 2 BHs In Jelebu, N9 !!!

Yesterday I was asked to take a good look at two newly constructed BHs in Jelebu, N9.

The two co-owners joined the long trip and they have been wondering why their BH were not doing well.

After attending my Monthly talks recently, December 5th 2009, they invited me to make the trip.

The journey from Kuala Lumpur was about 1.5 hours.

Upon arrival I was greeted by three dogs and a puppy.

The 1st BH was located just beside a small river and at the back was a small hill with durian trees.

The front part of the BH was planted with Passionate Fruits.

The three stories building was launched in March 2009 and have yet to have any nests.

Both owners wanted to know why and what else can be done to make more birds to occupy their house plus need more nests from those that are staying.

My observations were as follows:

1) The internal sound.

The type of sound played, colony sound, was not suitable for a new BH. I prefer the Mating Sound (King Baby).

It seem that if you play those colony sounds, the young birds tends not to mate. They do stays but not making love. This house have been in operation since March 2009, about 9 months, there were lots of bird shits signs on the floor but no nests.

The only way to get them to quickly to make love and thus build their nest is to play those mating sounds.

I believed those mating sound will accelerate the production of those sexual hormones in their brain and thus will make their sexual organs develop at a much faster rate.

Remember if they do not copulate they will not built those precious nests.

2) The proper location of thos external sound tweeters.

The two owners claimed that most of the time those new birds tends to enter the entrance hole but upon entry they will immediately fly out of the hole.

"Pak Harry, they did not enter the nesting rooms at all."

My answer is simple. There must be a reason and I predicted the external sound tweeters location in the house was not proper.

The moment we entered the house, I was dead right.

The "Consultant" gives very little attention on the importance of tweeter placements starting from the entrance hole down to the nesting rooms.

I gave them a few tips where to install a new sets of external sound tweeters in the whole house.

3) The number of Internal Tweeters.

This is the most common mistakes of nearly all BH owners. They installed too little.

Okay let us take a good look at the bird shit spots on your BH floor and check their precise locations. Where are they located?

The answer is just below the internal sound tweeters. Obvious and true.

How many bird shit spots do you have? Almost the same number to those internal tweeters installed.

So why not you install more tweeters?

"Yes Pak, I fully agrees with your way of thinking. If I put say 200 then I will also have 200 bird shit spots in the house. Right now only about 50."

4) The Precise Location Of those Internal tweeters.

I told the owners to be very precise on where those tweeters to be installed. They have a very important functions and contribution to their BHs.

They need to know exactly how to maximise the contribution in getting more nests, the precise location to install them on the nesting planks, the orientation of the tweeter, the direction where to face and the best shape that they should used.

The other important point was the wiring of these tweeters. They need to pull a separate wire for those tweeters located in every zone.

Use the same type and model from one manufacturer and never mix these tweeters, I told them also.

Different manufacturers and different models will tend to have different resistivity thus allow those with the least resistivity to be louder then those that have higher resistivity. It will defeat the purpose of installing them.

5) The Creation of VIP Rooms.

I have this strong opinion that we should build a VIP room on every floor.

The VIP room is nothing more then a room that is not smaller then 12 feet but can be as big as 30 feet by the width of the BH.

My main reason being, this VIP room will be where those birds will concentrate to build their nests.

The door must be precisely located and the fixtures in this room shall be more attractive to those wild birds.

The internal Tweeters to be separately wired so that the internal sound played in this room will be the loudest.

They need to make sure the humidity and temperature will be within the required range all times.

I also told them to place those fresh bird shit on a regular basis.

Choose the floor where the number of bird shits spots were the most.

It seem that they did try an Aroma from a supplier. It seem that they works quite well but not lasting. The smell seem to be gone in less then one week. My idea was to use those containers that are shaped like corner covers and they might want to deploy them inside the VIP room. Five or Six units will be more then enough.

I suggested the removal of some of those corner covers in the VIP room. The number suggested was equal to the number of tweeters installed in this room. Let those wild birds bird their nest at these corners. Cover them later once they have used the corners twice.

Install a number of external sound tweeters in the VIP room. The most important will be at the entrance hole and the back wall. They need to pull those birds into the room and make them go to the very back.

6) Replace Those Chicken Coop Humidifiers with Soundless Humidifiers.

According to the two, the introduction of those conventional humidifiers do increase the number of bird shits spots on the floor. However the area where the humidifiers were located, there were none.

I explained the reasons behind the emptiness and I suggested to them to replace the two noisy humidifiers with soundless units. Install at least three units in the VIP room suggested.

The current humidifier can be deployed to the roving areas. Do not operate them between 5:00pm till 8:00 pm. We cannot effort to scares those birds away.

The cool air inside the roving area, caused by those humidifiers, will protect the hot air outside from entering the BH directly, I told them.

7)The House Was Too Dry.

I believed in the special effect of having water in the house.

Most BH owners who installed a water system, any types of water in the house, will show a drastic improvements of their BH nests population.

Since we are not allowed to install any water pond or drain or water pails in it we need to think of something else that will be helpful to attract those birds into our BH.

The best option is to use both the spray nozzle on the walls (only for ground floor) and those soundless humidifiers on the upper floors.

The miss spray is proven to be very good if you install them properly. The only problem will be its tendency to flood the floor.

To avoid a possible mishap I suggest the installation to be only on the lowest floor.

All other floors, upstairs, use those soundless humidifiers.


8) Avoid Using Wood base Materials In the House.

Any kind of wood base materials used in the house will become a source of propagating those fungus. Fungus are hazardous since they pollute the air in the house with spores and those birds hates them.

In this particular house the owner uses those plywood as the materials to block those light from the LAL.

I inspected the plywood walls and many seem to be with those fungus.

I recommended the use of those cement board 4'x4' plates. They are much safer then those plywood.

I also asked the owner to remove any boxes or carton or excess nesting planks on their BH floors.

Not only they will encourage those fungus to grow but also become a place to hide by those cockroaches or lizard or geckos and etc.

9) Wrong Installation of Internal Sound Tweeters.

I tend to be in favor of using rectangular shape tweeters as compared to those square tweeters.

Due to very little contact area of the square tweeters the installation are not proper.



The best is to opt for the rectangular 2"X5" size tweeters. This type of rectangular shape has more space to properly position the tweeters in the right position.

The tweeter must not be very far from the corner areas. I recommend about 3" away (the corners must not be installed with corner cover).

By placing the tweeter closed to the corner, once the tweeter is with a tenant, they will have a choice to build their nest above the tweeter or at the targeted corner.

10)Introduction of Fake Nests.

One more gadget that BH owner should not ignore are those fake nests.

Fake nest will actually helps the birds to quickly build their nests. They can be those made of plastic or Styrofoam or wood or aluminum strip or steel strip.

The best to me will be those made of plastic for easy recycling works later.

My proposition was to install equal number of fake nests as compared to those tweeters.

They must be installed about 3 inches away from those internal tweeters.


I am very sure the owner now have a much better ideas of how to improve their nest populations.

They were very grateful of all the observations I made and make a vowed to follow all the recommendations that I made.

I told them these recommendations are basic and every BH owner should make an attempt to engage someone to visit their BH and recommend all the necessary things in order the number of nests can grow at a much higher rate.

If you think you also need to improve your BH nests population, just ring this number 017 755 1318. If no answer text him to call back.
















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My main objective to continue writing this blog on swiftlet farming is to expose everything that are relevant to those who wanted to get involve with the business.

I strongly believed that the only way to minimise failure is to get as much knowledge as possible before you invest in it.

If you feel that the lesson learned deserved an encouragement you can contribute a some donation to this account: Yayasan Kebajikan Nah Sabah, 100930010038410 at Allied Bank, Malaysia.