Trying To Act As A Pro !!!

You can easily pin point a young "Pro" and a real Pro in Swiftlet farming.

A very interesting day with two set of newbies.

One was totally ignorant of swiftlet farming and never own a BH before.

You can learn a bit from analysing what they understand about swiftlet farming.

1) Pak Harry is it true that BH located near to the sea is very good?

    This question is like saying that those salt water is the major attraction to those birds.  My answer was "Not always true".  He should have asked "Pak Harry birds loves to populate those BHs close to water sources like sea,  river, lakes, reservoirs, even fish ponds and even those waste water treatment plant?"  My answer will be yes you are right.  They need water to survive and at the right time of the day those water traps do generate insects.

2) Pak Harry, we should install those corner covers in order to get better raw nests price.

  He might be right but not always.  During the early stages of your new BH it is advisable not to insert those corner covers yet.  Those birds loves to build their nests at these corners so let them enjoy using the 90* corners.  Once your BH have about 300 nests then you should place those corner covers.

3) Pak Harry is it true that those water surrounding the BH will cool down the house?

  There is no truth or studies being done in that.  When people placed water around the BH is mainly to prevent those ants from crossing into the BH.  There might be some evaporation created by those water but it will not drastically reduce the heat from entering the BH.

4) Pak Harry, those ventilation holes should be open in total to cool down the BH.

  I disagree to this idea.  Main reason being during the daytime, after 10.00am, the external air is a bit to hot and too dry.  If you allow these toxic air to enter your BH in large quantity it will eventually damage the internal temperature and humidity in the nesting areas.  Worst is when you apply those expensive aromas.  If you allow too much air to flow inside via the ventilation holes those expensive odor will be push out thus you will waste a lot of money.

5) Pak Harry, it is good to put water pond on the rooftop of a stand alone BH.

 I think having a water pond on the top or your BH will call more trouble then cooling your BH.  I have entered so many BHs and nearly 80% of those with pond on their rooftop have leakages problems. These are mainly due to microcracks in the cement.  Those water will wet your nesting planks and encourage fungus to grow. Swiftlets hates those spores in the air.

6) Pak Harry, all entrance hole should face the direction of the sun all the time?

I beg your pardon?  Who says so?  I believed your BH entrance hole should firstly face the flight path of those birds coming home in the evening.  In cases where your BH is closed to a water source, you might consider to change the direction to face those water source.

There is some truth that if you face the entrance hole to the west more often then not those birds will construct their nests closed to the entrance areas.  This is because they hate to wake up late in the morning. When you wake up late, you will have nothing left to eat for breakfast.

7) Pak Harry can I build a BH 30' by 60'?

Well if you like it please go ahead.  Do you know anything about those birds characters?  Have you ever heard that they need a roving area of at least 4 meters by 4 meters?  Why don't you consider the 4x4 configuration?  Make your BH a multiple of 4X4 !!!

8) Pak Harry, can we play both the external and internal the whole day long I mean 24 hours a day?

What is the purpose of those sounds?  To attract those wild young birds to enter your BH.  Once there is no more birds outside, i.e at night, what is the purpose of playing them at night?  Yes for those internal sound you may want to play for 24 hours.  Maybe you should stop at midnight so that those birds can talk to their kids.

9) Pak Harry, which entrance type is better, the side entry of the top entry?

There no appropriate answer to this question.  It depends a lot on the types of entrance holes of those BHs around your land.  Remember your new BH depends totally on those young stray and have yet to build their nests birds that I believed were bred inside your neighbor's BHs.  They tend to have this preference to the same type of entrance hole where they were hatched.  If all your neighbors are using those side entry then you go for side entry. Likewise if many of the BHs are the top entry type then you go with the top entry.  What if the top and side entries number are nearly equal?  Think about dual entries type.

Well those who have read the above questions and answers please try not to post this questions again, please !!!!