"Pak Harry, my BH now have about 350 nests after 2.5 years. I wonder if the population can be increased to 700 within the next 12 months. Please come and inspect the BH and recommend what are the things that I should do."
Are you having any problems with the BH? I asked.
"The nests population grew steadily for the first 1.5 years but after that the number seems to be stagnant."
Well a BH with an interesting problem that are pretty common now days.
This can be due to many reasons but if you look around this BH there are at least 20 new BHs around it.
The owner also realized that his competitors are growing rapidly and if he do not act early he will loose all his young birds to those unscrupulous neighbors.
"Pak Harry, now there are more then 20 new BHs around me and I know that those empty units next to my current BH will be turned into BHs within the next few months. Can you see the urgency of you revamping my BH?"
To him is like getting into a war and he need the latest bullet to be a winner. A very smart man.
I now realize why he keep calling me nearly everyday to confirm when I can move my workers to his BH.
I took about 45 minutes to check the status of the BH before getting the revamp works started.
Most of the nests were on the upper floor and strangely they love to occupy those nesting planks located above the staircase tunnel (the highest part of the building about 12-13 feet from the floor).
Hmm.... I think there must be some reasons why they love to have their nest here as compared to the normal ceiling areas. I think these birds knows that the higher the ceiling from the floor the more difficult for predators (human) to harvest their nests. I am very impress with this new finding.
The next interesting observation was where they occupy the nesting planks. Yes nearly all the crossing or those areas where the nesting planks rows and crossings meets. Since they love these crossing with corner covers, I asked the owner why don't we increase the crossings?
Those areas closed to the internal sound playing tweeters are also pretty occupied. The sad thing was that the number of tweeters installed were very little. I also inform the owner that I will get at least 150 internal sound playing tweeters per floor.
The 2nd floor have the least number of nests. Roughly the top floor was with about 330 nests and the lower floor not more then 20 nests. We need to drag those young birds down and I need to figure out the right methods to ensure the lower floor are with more nests.
The nesting planks looks okay but were about 2 feet apart with very little crossing planks. I need to increase by at least four rows but what I have in mind is to use those aroma laced planks.
The entrance hole area looks pretty okay but I do not see any hexagonal tweeters or the noisy tweeters.
There were no proper VIP room on each floor. I think a wet floor VIP room will be very useful to get more birds to stays.
What can be the reasons why those young birds are not staying back or return to stay after taking their maiden flight? BH owners need to ask this question over and over again. Just imagine this BH already have more then 350 nests and every breeding cycle it will produced a total of about 700 young birds. For 12 months there should be at least 700X3 = 2,100 of them but how come they are not staying or return to build their nest beside their parent?
There must be some good reasons that causes them to move to somebody else BHs.
I was asked to come out with the reasons and perhaps helps to make those babies to stay and helps in the nest population increment.
A new task that need more planning and time to squeeze my already dried brain.
The floor were very dry and those chicken coop humidifiers were not functioning.
Yesterday I moved two of my workers to site and one is at the warehouse to receive my instruction on what he shall assembled or get ready for me to collect.
An interesting new revamp works and I think this will be something new for me to try out some of those new ideas that I have accumulated for some time.
We shall give a try and see if the number of nests can multiply to 1,000 within 12 months.
Those who would like to visit the BH during the revamp works can do so by calling this number 017 755 1318. There is a small visiting fee (RM300 per head) to support my research activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment