Breeding Cycle Dilemma !!!

What happen when the birds breeding cycle go hay wired???

This is something very interesting and perhaps will tell us something.

I recently received an email from one of a BH owner who already have about 400 nests. His BH was put into operation about 4 years ago. A stand alone unit in an agricultural land off Tangjung Malim.


Quote:

I know swiftlets only breed three times a year, but on recent visits to the my swiftlet farms, I noticed that there were nests in various stages, i.e. some with eggs, some with just-born babies, some with medium babies, some with full-grown babies learning to fly.

At the moment, my workers go in to harvest every 4-5 weeks, but they come across the problem of quite a number of nests being used a second time, i.e. eggs have been laid again. As you know, nest quality drops when used more than once as it becomes dirtier and less white.

Unquote:

It looks as if the phenomena defy the norm where these birds normally will follow a kind of breeding cycle. They are supposed to breed three times a year and follow the raining calender.

Remember when it rains there will be more food to feed the growing up babies.

In this case they do not follow the breeding cycle. They seem to have a kind of continuous breeding cycle or no cycle at all.

Why are they behaving as such?

My personal explanations, might not be always right, are as follows:

1) The weather pattern at the said location is not following a normal pattern. Perhaps due to the global warming the rain at that location are continuous. As such those birds can breed non stop since the food supplies are on a continuous basis.

2) Perhaps the owner have been harvesting the nest every month. In this yes. He mentioned that his workers harvest every 4-5 weeks once. Once you do that, the birds will build a new nest to start a new home. They will delay their time to lay their eggs until such time the nest is ready to receive them. Remember these precious birds will start to lay eggs again once their babies flew away. Within 10 days or so, after their baby leave their nests, they will be able to start a new generation. If those workers keep harvesting then the breeding cycle will become hay wired and no longer following the normal breeding cycle pattern.

3) I remembered visiting the BH a few months ago. I realised that the BH was located very closed to a thick forest and at a foot hill of a number of hills in the vicinity. If you observe the forest carefully, nowadays the plants grow with thick leaves and the flowering seem to be massive. Once the plant start flowering there will be tons of insects visiting the flowers for honey or pollen collection. The unusual flowering pattern might be the reasons why those birds are having lots of food supply on a continuous basis. As such they breed continuously. Yes if you harvest their nest today, the next 3 weeks the nests will be rebuilt and ready to lay eggs.

I might not be right all the time but the above are my possible reasons.

Please don't take my word as the gosphel truth.

You need to think yourself why and perhaps observe similar pattern in your own BH.