You Can Create Elevated VIP Room By Dropping The Ceiling !!!

Just and idea.

I have been giving a very deep thought of how to deploy the elevated VIP room concept in a ready made shop house.

There are two methods that you can easily do this.

The expensive way is to expand the VIP room upward by about 4-5 feet above the current height.

This will increase the height of the nesting areas higher then those main hall areas by at least 4 feet.  The cost shall be determined by your civil contractor.

You might need to get the local council approval for this erection works.

However there is another easier way that will cost you much lesser and no hassle with the local council.

What you can do is to drop the ceiling height by about 1.5 feet at the main hall and roving areas.  The VIP room is left in tack.

The idea is to make the birds feel that the VIP room is much higher than the main hall. 

So in your next shop house conversion try to implement this method and I am very sure that those birds will choose the elevated ceiling room as compared to the lower roof area.

I might not be always right but if my assessment in right, you will gain from the bird's weaknesses. "They Love To Build Their Nests At Areas Higher Then The Rest".

If you need to talk more about this interesting idea please write to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com

Damaged Nests Due To Gekos !!!

 

(Nest being eaten away by Gecko)

I was in a BH in Nilai a few weeks back.

I noticed something unusual with a number of nests in this 2 years old BH with about 380 nests in total.

The affected nests seems to have been ripped apart by something.

At first I thought it might be due to those young birds clinging at the edge and perhaps they fell down due to maybe being too brittle.

However the house was pretty wet with the wet floor I constructed.

I took a ladder to do my CSI inspection.

I told the owner there must have been the chewed by something.  I predicted it was by a big lizard, the gecko.

The owner was not amused with my prediction and he was cock sure there is no such animal in his BH.

Okay let me do some more checking, I told him.

There were more then three spots where the nests were torn away as if being chewed away by this predator.

I told myself to keep looking around those wood corners.

Hola !!!

I found it and it was a medium sized gecko that was hiding inside the toilet room at the back of the entrance door.

I called the BH owner and showed it to him proving that I was right from the beginning.

These geckos can be a big nuisance to your BH.  First they will eat the nests, then they will start swallowing those eggs.  Soon enough they will be feeding on those newly hatched babies.

Get rid of them and the best is to kill them with catapult.

An interesting point to let all of you know is that if the Geckos found in your BH are with reddish spots on their body, please keep it to yourself. Don't kill them but let me know so that I can offer your a special offer.  I need it alive.

You wanted to know why?

Call me at 017 755 1318 so that I can give you the hint......

Elevated VIP Room BH Design !!!

 (The high density nests just above the staircase.)

I wish I can talk to those birds and if I do my first question will be "Mr Swiftlet can you tell me your design criteria for your place to stay".

Since we cannot talk to them we can only observe their characteristics and come out with the best interpretation what they like and what they don't.

In my many visits to BHs I have many observations and did came out with many special conclusions on how to provide them with the ideal gadgets or solutions to lure them into our BH.

Among the best, which I recently promoted, was the creation of VIP rooms.

After that I discovered their special liking to wet floor and I recommended the use of wet floor concept inside the VIP room.

I also discovered that they love tweeters that played the louder and crystal clear sound.  I came out with those "Chandelier Tweeters" and recently "Kite Tweeters".

And there were many more things that have make us realized that if you can provide the things that they loved there is a very high chances that they will choose out BH as compared to others who have no ideas on what those birds loves to have.

Recently I discovered that these wild birds seem to have the habit of choosing the roof area that are higher above the BH floor as compared to the standard height.

First observation was made in Tanjung Malim, Selangor.  About two years ago I remembered being invited into a 3 years old BH with about 400 nests.  The owner was very proud to show me his asset and there was something strange about where those birds love to build their nests.  The highest density was at one area that was a bit higher then the rest of the roof areas.  I did not make any conclusion about it but it was keep hidden in my mind.

The second similar observation made was in a BH in Nilai, N9.  This BH was with about 380 nests and the owner wanted my assistance to carry out the FH.  We conducted the nests count and I was surprised that one of the preferred nesting area was at the ceiling of the staircase where the ceiling height was the tallest.

Hmm..... very strange but interesting.

Yesterday I was in SP and I was in another highly populated BH.  I did the nests count for another FH operation. Again a similar thing was observed.  Nearly 50% of the nests built inside this BH were along the staircase where the height were slightly higher then the rest of the ceiling areas.

Now what can be the reasons?

1) They might have conducted a drop test to ensure that the height is suitable for their baby to take their first flight.

2)They must have come from another BH that was burglarized before.  They noticed that those nests that were higher then normal were not harvested.

3) They might feel safer on the higher areas since they are more isolated then the rest.

There might be some reasons I postulated but we cannot be 100% sure of their reasons.

The only thing that came to my mind was "Can we accommodate this special areas in our BH especially the VIP room area?".

What I came out was this "Elevated Roof VIP BH Design".

I have given the sketch to my draftsman yesterday and I hope it will be ready for distribution by next two weeks.

Have a look at what I came out with and I am sure you can use the idea to come out with many other designs.

Just try to provide a suitable nesting areas where the roof is slightly elevated or higher then the rest.

If you have any comment or things to share call me at 017 755 1318.  The new BH with elevated VIP room drawings will be available soon.

Interesting Observations That Might Teach Us Something !!!

I drove up to Ipoh then to Penang and the next morning was in Sungai Patani, Kedah during the weekend.

My first stop was in Ipoh, Perak.  Mr Lau, a newbie and my blog reader, wanted my opinion about his BH beside Tesco at Station 18, Ipoh.

I met him at Tesco and we walk to his newly completed BH.

My first impression was similar to those BHs that failed or will fail to bring those birds inside.

Not hexagonal tweeters, not enough external tweeters, not properly installed internal tweeters, the nesting planks looks like cultivating lots of fungus, no VIP room, no wet floor, no proper external sound at the back of the room.

After the short visit, I penned down my opinions with lots of sketches.  Went through with him and he was very pleased with my report.

"Pak Harry, you are the only kind in this world.  You know so much and you are so willing to share with me.  I am very glad to have called you."

"Mr Lau, I am just a normal person with a good heart.  I was born with that gift and I would like to do whatever I could to help the swiftlet industry.  You are lucky to have found my blog.  Please try to implement my recommendations your self but if you have any queries just call me."

Finished with the first task, I rush to my second BH in Paya Terubong.  I left the BH for almost three weeks and I feel something is not right with the BH.  I have a bad feeling that the wet floor is dried and the owner shut off the water pipe.

The moment I entered it was exactly like what I predicted.  There was a leak in the pipe and the owner tried to stop the leak but unsuccessful.  His best option was to shut the main pipe and wait for Pak Harry.

I managed to get my technician to tighten up those fitting and they were okay.  The wet floor was then filled with water.

Before proceeding to Sungai Patani (SP), I stayed back to view the number of birds flying above the roof top and counted the number that entered the BH.

My horror was true.  The number of birds flying around the place was less then 200.  Only 13 , up to 8:00pm, entered the BH under my care.  Quickly let the owner be informed about the difficulties in getting more birds into his BH.

In SP I was requested to perform the FH.  The owner wanted me to proof to him that FH works.

I convinced him long ago and he keep pushing me to carry out the job.

Prior to starting the job I make some interesting observations:

1) Those birds seem to be in love with the chandeliers.  They build their nest above the chandelier where those nesting plank crossings were. This behavior have something to do with the sound.  The affected chandelier plays external sound and made up of eight tweeters tied in a circle. The external sound loudness must make them feel comfortable to be near to.

2) I help my technician with the current number of nests count.  A very strange observation that I think happened in at least three BHs I visited were the way those birds chooses the place to build their nests.  They seems to prefer to choose those nesting plank crossing at the staircase where it is higher and difficult to pluck the nests.  There must be a special reason and I can only says that the high point will be better for those chick to take their first flight.  However I strongly believed this intelligent creature knows that it will much tougher for human to harvest them.

I will try to write another article on how we can use the above two observations to improve our BH.  Next article, I promise.

After the nests count I set down with the BH owner and planned out the FH activities.

Prior to removing those nests, I installed a number of  gadgets that I know will improve the nests count within the next 3 to 4 months after the FH.

First was to complete the wet floor with those plastic mat, sand, two bags of fresh bird shit and lots of water.

The second interesting gadget deployed were those waste wood corners.  Installed about 60 pieces inside and around the VIP room.

The third magnetic gadget were two kite tweeters at the entrance door of the VIP room and inside the room.

After the FH operation I applied those special aromas to make the birds feel less stress.

I am very sure that the number will increase by at least 20% but I predicted 30%.

The owner was very pleased with my hard work.  With dirty shirt, tired leg, hand and smell like shit I came back straight to KL.

I felt very satisfied and good about this latest opportunity to test my theory that FH will benefit BH owners.  The moment you carry out the operation the nest number will multiply quickly. Try to do them once a year but prior to that make sure you are ready with those items to pull them back into your BH.

It is better to get some one who knows how to carry out the job.  There will be a lot of problems if you are not very familiar with the operation.

If you wish to try let me know and will be happy to apply all those techniques to improve your nests population.  Yes 3-4 months you will get 20-30% increase.

Call me at 017 755 1318 now......

One Year After Conversion With Not a Single Nest !!!

This was what happened to a one year old BH located above a car tyre shop located somewhere in Gambang Pahang.

"Pak Harry, I have been reading your blog on a regular basis and I need your help to visit my BH in Gambang."

Since I was visiting Kuantan, the owner of the failed BH picked me up to view his miserable BH.

After have a good look at the BH I told him that it seems that there were a number of birds, base on the number of bird shit spots on the floor, but they are not building their nests.

The most probable reasons can be due to:

1) The temperature of the BH was a bit too high.

2) The floor were too dry.  There was no wet floor and no humidifier.

3) The nesting rooms were too bright.

I told him what he should do and if he follow my advise those birds should start mating and will start their nests building.

From the way he was implying he wanted me to be the person to revamp the BH for him.

"Pak Harry, I went through you blog and I think you will be the right person to help me to revamp.  I cannot effort to make another mistake."

Well he need to wait until I get my Kuantan BH project done with, I told him.

Those who would like to view the BH and perhaps learn from his mistakes, please arrange to call 017 755 1318 and drop by in Gambang some time in mid of March 2011.

You might have a similar situation and let me teach you the modifications that you can do to bring those birds into your BH.

NTV 7 Visited Ulu Langat BH Project !!!!

Mr Ooi of NTV7 production house visited the Ulu Langat BH last week.

I was contacted about a few weeks back by Mr Ooi and I managed to ask the BH owner for the permission to get NTV 7 over.

The main objective was to focus on local interest, according to Ooi.

Swiftlet farming is something that was new to him.  He brought his cameraman to snap the vedio clip and the BH became his main attention.

I was asked with a few questions about swiftlet farming and I hope my contribution will be good for the industy.

Ooi will be visiting Setiawan this March 4th and 5th during my Seminar.

He planned to make more coverage on my activities and perhaps take more video pictures inside the BH with 4000 nests.

One Day Trip To Kuantan, Pahang !!!

I was requested to drive 3.5 hours to Kuantan Pahang to have a good look at a BH that was operated for almost 4 years but was left unattended when the tenant was asked to leave.

This is something very special to all of us.

This interesting project can be something interesting for my research operation in pulling back those birds that have left their home.

The BH was left empty by the previous owner (tenant) when his rental of the floor was terminated.

The affected BH was on the top floor of a 3 stories building located beside a main road in Kuantan just facing the Kuantan main river.

According to the information given it was converted into a BH about four years ago using a monkey house entry type.

From my survey the ex tenant did not make any effort to reinstate the floor back to its original shape but left most of the nesting planks, with lots of birdshit on the floor, broken roof top, a few broken walls, barb wires here and there and the only best thing to do now is to reinstate the BH back to operation mode.

The previous BH owner removed all the nests on the nesting planks and the sound system.  However he left the BH with a good signs on the floor and the nesting planks.

There were at least 100 plus nests markings but lots of birdshit on the floor.

I was not surprise that those birds are still staying even without any sound being played.

The building owner wanted me to put the BH back into operation mode.

I told them that I will be happy to do that for that at a reasonable cost.

This will be a good mile stone to proof a point that it is mush easier to populate an old BH with nests as compared to a brand new BH with no nest.

I plan to take up this renovation job and complete it within 2 weeks.

How Kepong BH Is Pulling More Birds From Neighbor's BHs !!!

  

 You might not be able to see two new external sound tweeters I recently installed at the monkey house corner.

But if you look carefully yes there are.

What prompt me to install the two was because I sense that the neighbor's BH do have plenty of birds on his rooftop all day long.

Every time I stop by to view the entrance hole area I can see reasonable number of birds playing at the back.

I was very tempted to lure them over and it was quite a while later I have decided to do what I need to do.

Yesterday when I revamp the BH, the first thing I instructed my worker to do was to climb up on the roof and install two 3"X7" high powered bullet tweeters towards the neighbor.

He did precisely like what I have in mind.

I was cock sure those birds that have never ventured across the boundary will be attracted by my new external sound.

Today at 6:00 pm I parked my car in front of the BH and watch carefully the effect of the two tweeters.

Oh yes they performed precisely like what I predicted.

They will fly towards the tweeters, touch them and fly to the entrance hole.  The sound must be so good that the entered the BH one by one.

Phew, I know it works and I am glad that those small thing gives more effect to those birds.

A good lesson I learned here is to be innovative. If you wish to get more birds from your neighbors you need to think of various ways to pull them over.

There is no used to be jealous of his BH with huge number of birds flying above his roof top.  You can be as good as him if you get your act together.

Do something and I am sure you can be as successful as he is.

From my long experiences in swiftlet farming, usually those guys who have lots of birds inside their BH they tend to forget to take care of the needs of their birds.

Some time they forget to spray those insecticide, the forgot to wet the floor, they remove the BH bird shit, they enter their BH very often and many more mistakes.

If they continue with their mistakes there is a strong chances that there are many young birds that are willing to cross over.

Wet Floor Installation Cause A Jump In Kepong BH Bird Count !!!

Among the many BHs that I looked after the Kepong BH is my favorite.

Main reasons being, it is near to my house (10 minutes) and the owner give me a free hand to carry out what ever revamp works as long as his nests number multiply.

What I did was to keep track of the bird count that enter the BH from 7:00pm till about 8:00pm on alternate Fridays.

Every time I carried out modifications or change of external sound I will make a point to record them in the list.

So now I have nearly 40 readings that gives me some clear indication on the progress of the BH.

They grew steadily but there were some dips and sudden jumps especially after those modification works or change of sound. During a very dry season the number dips considerably (I think they travel further and will come back late).

 Among all  the best jumps, where there is a considerable jump in numbers of birds entering the BH, was when the wet floor was introduced.

The number of birds entering the BH jumps to nearly double.

There must be something strong that pushed the number to such a big increase.

First I think the humidity, especially in the wet room, will be higher then normal. Birds love high humidity and wet floor is the way to go.  It tends to have lesser chances to wet the nesting planks as compared to blasting those chicken coop humidifiers for 24 hours.

It seems that young birds generated by your own BH will not return home to roost or multiply if your BH is too dry.  Wet floor attract them to stay.

Second reason might be due to the rotting smell of those bird shit that I sprinkled on the wet sand.  It must have generated those strong ammonia smell making all these birds to think that the BH is full of birds. Their instinct of feeling safe in a larger crowd might be a possible reason.

My experiment using wet floor seems to be working and I fully recommend that to those who have difficulties in increasing their BH nests number try the method.

There is no harm in trying because it will cost you very little.  Just a roll or two of those plastic sheet, a few bags of sand and fresh bird shit. You need to regularly wet the sand.

Try to focus only inside the VIP room.

Yesterday I was there again with my assistant to add a few new things that I believed will further improves the nest count withing the next three months.

The list of things I carried out were:

a) Added additional external tweeters on the roof top facing the neighbors BHs. Only two 3"x7" bullet tweeters.  One directly towards the neighbor's BH rooftop while the other towards their flying path to the same BH.

b) Added two Kite Tweeters inside the VIP room. Main reason was to draw more birds into the VIP room.

c) Installed about 30 sets of wood corners on those nesting planks at the perimeter of the VIP room. This wood assembly, consisted of a normal nesting plank about 7" long attached to a 90* corner cover, provide a temporary location of a 90*  and 130* angle corners.  Once used by those wild birds the gadget will be removed to ensure that the birds will now build a new nest but with the 180* shape nest.

d) Installed an auto changer for external sound amplifiers. This gadget is an auto system that allows the use of two amplifiers for my external sound.  Prior to installing I was playing only one sound (low budget). 

e) Added a new amplifiers to allow the setting of two separate set of external sounds to be played more effectively. Now I will be able to use two separate sounds, one the effective sound (gurilla) and less effective sound (NBU).

f) Change and adjust the timing of the external sounds. My main focus will be the last hour of the daylight and the early morning. 

g) Ten sets of those 2mm X 5"X6" aluminum plates were also installed. This gadget is one of my research activities.  I wanted to know whether aluminum plate is attractive to these wild birds to build their nest on them or between the gap.

h) The wet floor area were flooded with lot more water. The last time I visited the BH was about three weeks ago.  I wet the floor manually but it seem it was not wet enough.  This time I used the existing plastic bins (four all together) and filled them up one by one.  Once they were full I splash them onto the wet floor area.

i) A new chicken coop humidifier was installed. This was something extra which I installed. The old unit was giving loud sound.  I set the timing properly so that it will run about 5 times during day time.

g) The floor areas of the roving and main hall were wet with birdnest processed water. I brought along with me about four 10 liter bottles of nests process water.  They smell wonderful, to those birds, and I wanted the whole house to have this special smell.  I splashed the water onto those cement floor that are not covered with those plastic mat.

j) All tweeters were checked and those faulty were replaced. There were a few tweeters that were found to be faulty.  Most important were those at the entrance hole.

k) A bag of fresh bird shit were sprinkle on the wet floor. Fresh bird shit should be reapplied on a regular basis.  Most of these shit, after a few months will not act as a medium to produce those ammonia smell. I believed a bag or two for every VIP room will be a excellent choice.  Make sure the floor are pretty wet then pour those bird shit onto the floor.

l) Upon completion the VIP room's walls were sprayed with "Passionate Love" aroma. All the four walls of the VIP rooms were sprayed with the aroma to enhance the attractiveness to those wild birds.

m) The chicken coop water were spiked with "mysecretrcp" aroma. This is one way to make sure the room smell is well covered.  Just pour about 200 milliliter of those aroma into the humidifier water pans.  I am sure the mist produced will ensure that the rooms will be filled with its smell.

This will be something exciting and I hope by year end the number of birds entering the BH from 7:00pm till 8:00pm will double.

Will keep my blog readers posted.

If you wanted to try my technique in deploying the wet floors in your BH please call 017 755 1318.

New Finding: Chiseling of Markings On Cement Walls Before A Nest Is Build !!!

While inspecting the Nilai BH yesterday I was not focusing on the total number of nests but was looking for anything weird that can tell me something more about the BH and the swiftlet behaviors.

There were two findings that was worth to mention to the owner or perhaps to those who wanted to know some interesting discoveries.

The first was the clear indication of swiftlet using their beak to scars the cement walls to prepare their nesting base.

What I discovered was that they will take great length of time to chisel the cement wall with black paint on it and get the spot ready before starting their nests building on the exact spot.

Have a good look at this picture:

 This seem to be very interesting and I was never informed before that swiftlet also knows how to use there beak to chisel the wall of a building to prepare their nest base.

Once the sport is being chisel it will become a bit rough thus allows the saliva to have the ability to grip onto the surface.

Very interesting and I would say this is my new discovery for year 2011.

My second finding was those broken nests that cannot be due to the young babies but more by a predator that feed on the nest.

Will post the nests pictures in my nest posting.

My Weekend With A Friend's BH Doing FH !!!

"Darling you need to excuse me this Sunday because I need to help a friend to advise his FH operation."

That was the word that I used to inform my beloved wife about what I will be doing on Sunday (today).

Usually if I am at home with my wife I love to take her for brunch and immediately after that we will visit a foot reflexology center in Bangsar.

This weekend was a bit different.  I told her that I promised some one in Nilai to help him with his FH operation.

I carried out major revamp works on this BH and after 3 months I can see the big increased in the number of nests in the house.  There were plenty of new markings plus newly build nests all over the four sections on the top floor.

The top floor, fully formed nests, went up by at least 14%.

The lower floor showed an increased of 60%.

This was less then 3 months after my revamp operation.

The best was to know that there were so many new marking on the nesting planks and some were on the fake nests installed.

Before carrying out the FH I got my staff to count the nests in each section of the house.  There were four sections and the lower floor was the fifth.

I wanted to proof to the owner that after the FH the nests numbers will increase by at least 20-30%.

After counting the figure it was submitted to the owner for his record purposes.

Immediately after that the FH was carried out.

We focus only on the three sections of the top floor while the section at the staircase and the lower floor were untouched.

After the operation my task was to apply the necessary aroma on the walls of the entrance hole area and the VIP rooms.

I also focus on the two wet floors inside the VIP rooms.

To draw more birds to the lower floor without any request made by the owner, I installed two "Kite" Tweeters at the main entrance door to the lower floor and the VIP room.

I am very confident he will be able to get a 100 percent increase of nests within 12 months.  Got 9 more months to go.

All my devotion and dedication seem to improve the nests count by about  21% on the average within 3 months.

I am hopeful that after the FH operation the nest number will improve by another 30% from the latest count done today within the next 3 months.

Have a good look at the new and well formed nests in the BH before doing the FH.

Those who do not understand the word FH please call or SMS your query to 0177551318.

Those who owned BH with at least 300 nests and would like to carry out the FH please let me know.