I was asked to give some opinion about what will the best things to do once a BH reaches the right number of nests.
Assuming your BH have reaches the right number of nests, say 300 nests, what will be the next thing to do?
How frequent should the harvesting be carried out and how to improve the quality of nests during harvesting?
Remember when your BH nests population have touches 300, you no longer need to depend on those birds from other BHs but internally you have a self generating population of at least 300 X 3 X 2 = 1800 young birds a year.
So I got these opinions that you might want to digest (the content of my email to him):
The key issue is to harvest a clean whitish crystal clear nests which can fetch the highest value when you sell them raw.
The shape of the nest is also a very important factor.
If I were you I will look at the various things that can improve the overall quality of the nests from my BH.
Assuming you have 300 nests and growing. What will be the best things that you should do to ensure that there will be more nests every month and they are of the highest grade.
The first thing you should do is to profile the nests location in your BH. You should be more scientific and more precise where the current nests are located.
By doing that you can also determine the growth number from time to time.
You can then devide the nesting areas into zones. Each zone must not be lesser then 15 feet (example).
Once you have the zone done and the number of nests inside them, you can now sit down and lay a plan.
First, determine which zone have the least population but ideal for the birds to stay. You can perhaps looks into increasing the nests number by carrying out minor modifications. Good example create at least a VIP room. This room can be used to help in forcing the young or new tenants to come and start their nests in a selected part of your BH.
Second, you need to plan a yearly forced harvest operation. When will it be done and the best way to carry out the operation. Force harvest, once a year, can help to increase your nests population by at least 20* within 3 months.
Third, you need to figure out the best ways to minimize the odd shape nests. You need to perhaps cover the corners with proper nest covers that will produce 180* nest and no more 90* or 130*.
Fourth, you need to perhaps minimize those corners. Maybe remove those crossings in stages.
Fifth, you need to improve the color of every nests in the house. You might want to start on a selected floor and later move to the rest of the floor. Try to figure our the best methods on how to improve the whiteness of those nests.
Six, you can now carry out the harvesting based on zones. The harvesting will be your last priority as compared to increasing the numbers of nests as the first priority, improving the shape of the nests as your second and improving the color of the nests as the third.
Harvesting should be done based on some criteria.
I believed you need to closely monitor the breeding pattern of you tenants. There should be a kind of norms on when they start to lay their eggs, they incubate, then hatched, then feeding the babies and later the babies will fly off.
You can opt to harvest on a monthly basis (minor) but if the chart is properly prepared you can perhaps choose when will be the best to do the major harvesting.
It does not mean that if there are eggs in the nest you must not harvest the nest? You can still harvest them once you know that the nests were reused/recycled by those birds.
What if those young birds are still clinging to their nest? Yes you can still harvest by moving the young chick them aside and once harvested you can place a fake nests to replace the real nests. (Note you might need to remove the fake nests immediately once the baby have taken their flight).
The most difficult is to know which nest is build by a new tenant. They should be given a chance to breed for the 1st time. Try not to harvest their nests. If you can allow them to breed for at least two times.
I hope the above article do give you some new ideas on how to properly manage your BH.
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