The Room Temperature Now Dipped To below 30*C.

(Original temperature max of the nesting room)

The heat shield operation is finally over.

Nearly all the walls were covered with this so called Bubble Heat shield mat covered with cement boards.

From a maximum recorded of 32.2*C it dipped to 29.5*C.

This is within the range preferred by swiftlet to stay put as a tenant.

The so called heat shielding project was pretty tedious and time consuming.

It involved about 3.5 rolls of heat shield mat, 220 pieces of wood and 200 pieces of cement boards plus nearly 6 kilograms of nails.

The total cost incurred just for the materials was in the RM 5000 bracket.

The labor cost was about RM 1,500.

Total cost is RM 6,500.

This is worth the effort since the inhabitable BH now will be back to its normal condition.

For this particular BH at Chenderong Balai Perak, the high temperature inside was mainly due to using one layer of walls.

The type of bricks used was those low density bricks.

My next job now is to finish up the rooms and pull as many visitors inside.

The nesting planks need to be cleaned and applied with Super pheromone liquid.

There will be lots of internal sound tweeters and fake nests.

Each VIP room created shall be installed with a water pool about 10 feet X 12 feet.

Each floor shall have two humidifiers operated by those auto sensors.

Pretty need and ready to go.

Swiftlet Do Migrate To China !!!

If you find that your BH is having lesser birds during some time of the year, please be aware that they do migrate.

I was at home watching TV3 M3 yesterday evening and I gathered that there is a huge Cave at Juanshi, Yunan where every year between March to August.

It was mentioned that these swiftlet travel from Malaysia to breed at the cave.

Just listen to the lady.

Have a look at this video clip and learn something new:




I was never informed that swiftlet do migrate to breed at other locations.

Something which no one ever told us before but accidentally discovered while watching TV3 M3

They will come back to Malaysia only during the cold weather.

This might be the reason why during some time of the year the number of birds inside our BH is lesser then normal.

Remember they can fly at more than 100 km/hr.

And also can fly for more than 13 hours a day.

Chenderong Balai BH: Work In Progress !!!

(The back wall being heat shield using special bubble foam mat covered with ceiling boards)

Almost one week after moving to the Chenderong Balai BH.

The top floor revamp operation was almost completed.

The heat shielding now moved to the middle floor.

I would think that the whole revamp operation should be completed by next week, Wednesday or so.

The most time consuming was the heat shielding.

This BH is the first which an owner wanted the whole walls be heat shield.

I think he make the right choice because the thin wall, single sided and using those light weight bricks (4 inches thick) is not giving the right temperature.

As at yesterday I can see that the middle floor room temperature was hitting the 32.2*C max.

The top floor, after heat shielding operation was only 31*C max.

Usually the floor below should be one degree lesser (30*C max).

I would be very happy to see the drop of maximum temperature once the heat shielding is totally completed.

There was another big concerned that was raised by my workers.

It seems that the BH was like a magnet to those owls.

The night before they reported to hear those owls playing or mating sound above the BH from 10:00 pm till 7:00 am.

I have a very strong feeling that this might be the very reason why those swiftlet have been ignoring those external sound test.

They must have entered and stayed in this BH before and due to both the heat and the owl frequenting the BH scared them away.

Now they never even take a look at this BH, most of them.

The owner have very little choices but to install a number of owls prevention gadgets.

The first installed was this electrical shock wires at the roof areas where these owl might come and purge.

Let us hope that the shock treatment will help to prevent them from coming and play or mate at this BH.

(U can see the light from the main entrance area)

(Looking inward towards the VIP room)

(Can you see those light from the PVC pipe 90* elbows?)

(Notice how clean the nesting planks are?)

(I personally cleaned with special water)

(The fake nests were sprayed with Super Pheromone)

(Please check where is the chocolate tweeter)

(The elbows are fitted with pipe extension about 1.5 feet)

(There is a humidity sensor here?)

Take A Marker Pen With You During Your Next Visit To Your BH !!!

(Use a marker pen to draw a circle around every bird shit spots on your BH floor)

If your BH is new how do you identify if there are any new visitors inside your BH?

And also how to differentiate between new spots and old spots?

Assuming you bought a canister of the "Super Pheromone" and you plan to apply to those new markings on the nesting planks.

How do you trace that there are some new visitors that came in after your last visit?

My recommendation is to use the marker pen technique.

Before you apply the marking you need to firstly clean the floor and remove all those old or dead bird shit spots found on your BH floor.

Sweep them and if they are stuck to the floor use your foot to squash them until they become powdery.

Sweep and remove all these so called dead shit markings.

You might want to clean even those found below those nests.

Once the BH floors are cleaned you know that from now on any bird shit spots found on the floor will indicate that they were from your old or new tenants.

Now you can start marking them one by one.

Use the marker pen and circle every path of bird shit spot on the floor.

Once that is done you know for sure that any new tenant will show new bird shit spots that are not being circled.

Once they are found you can now climb the ladder and try to pin point where do you think those birds were sleeping.

Identify the spot and spray the Pheromone liquid.

The new marking now can be circled with a different color pen marker.

So during your next visit you can start searching for any more new bird shit spots.

Do the same as per your previous visit.

If you continue doing this routine you will soon more and more nests inside your BH.

Usually the liquid pheromone will help to anchor the couple and once they smell the luquid they will have the urge to mate and start making their nests.

Try this idea and see if what I am saying is true.

Rawang BH In A Three Stories Shophouse !!!

(Back View Of Rawang BH)

I was given the invitation to inspect this five years old BH with only about 200 nests.

The owner wanted to know the exact reasons why his nests numbers remains at 200 and not moving.

Well I was glad to accept his invitation and since he was not well verse with English he got his daughter to be the interpreter.

The BH looks okay to me with very little problems found on the floor and the nesting planks.

There was not a single cockroach on the floor and on the ceiling areas.

The BH was also free of any "Tokek" and ants.

So what can be the real issues that cause the BH to have this stagnant number of nest for at least two years.

The best signs was the condition of those nests that was not harvested.

They were splitting and cracking.

In two of the nests there were two young birds that were dead with one of their foot trapped onto the cracked nest.

My biggest suspicion was due to low humidity.

However the owner do have two chicken coop humidifiers but upon checking they were disconnected due to some reasons which the owner have been recommended not to put it on.

The inspection was about 45 minutes and I told the owner his BH might need the followings:

1) He should put more water on all the three floors.
    What I meant by putting more water is to have the humidity higher.
     His best option is to clean up the floor and install a kind of wet floor system.
    Beside the wet floors he need to use a mist maker to keep the humidity at 85%RH plus minus 3%.
    If the chicken coop is noisy to his ears he should opt for those quite mist makers.

2) His internal sound need to be changed and its volume to be a bit higher.
    Currently he is using a kind of unusual sound that I will not recommend to any newbies.
    I did some auto help to change his sound to SuperBabyKing.
    The sound he was using was something like colony sound with no baby sound in it.
    The sound volume was very very low too.
     The best is to use two amplifiers that can be run on 12/12 hours on and off.
     The higher volume to be played at night, 15 minutes before the stoppage of the external sound until         morning.  At about 8:00 am he can change to the lower volume sound.

3)  The external sound was a bit too old and need a new booster.
      What I did was to change his old sound to Selking.
      I push the volume a bit higher during the testing period and the birds responded very well.
      During the later part of my visit I asked him to lower the volume a bit since it was a bit too high and might bring some unpleasant complains.

4) The BH external sounds seems to be focused only at the main entrance hole and the main roving areas.
    There was no external sound inside all his nesting rooms.
    What I did was to recommend the use of chocolate tweeters, two sets, inside his nesting rooms.

5) One very sure observation was the nesting rooms darkness.
     His daughter agreed on my observations.
     I told him that the amount of light inside those rooms that faces the entrance window were a bit on the bright side.
    I pointed out that most of the nests were at the opposite rooms that were not directly facing the main entrance hole.
   He should carry out a kind of partition to block direct light.
   These rooms will be called his VIP rooms.

6) I was happy to know that he did installed a number of fake nests but just three or four.
    I think two were occupied even they were not properly positioned.
    Just imagine if he should follow some tricks like putting more of it and precisely located.
    I drew some sketches for his to refer two and recommended about 50-60 pieces per floor.
    I insisted that they should be located about 1.5"-2" away from those internal sound tweeters.
    If is wanted to see better result please spray those "Super Pheromone".

7) The number of internal sound tweeters were little, like 20 per floors.
     My sincere recommendation to him was to push the number to about 150 per floor.
    Use those cluster installations.

8) Trial Use of the Super Pheromone.
    I wanted to tell him to apply the Super Pheromone is a large scale however I think that it is not fare to force someone to follow.
   What I did was to leave a canister for trial purposes.
  If the birds species responded I wanted him to apply in a larger scale.

This is what you get when you allow me to visit your sick BH.

A full report full of sketches on what to do and also an opportunity to use my latest most effective sounds.

Try me by calling this number 0177551318.

A BH In Brunei That Is Doing All Right !!!

I remember visiting Brunei to help a guy by the name of Vincent on swiftlet farming in Brunei.

What I remembered was that after three days running around with him and the birdcall sound system we gave up.

My conclusion was there was not a sign of them in Brunei.

I advise this person to look or invest some where else.

He went down to Pontianak Indonesia and bought a land and erected his first BH.

Suddenly this interesting development came to my mobile phone.

"Pak Harry I would like to try your Super Pheromone and my BH is in Brunei.  There are only three BHs here and the other two are empty."

He was so thrilled that his BH using marvelous cloud is running well.

I have courier a package of those super pheromone for some test.

I hope he will share with me his experiences after apply the Super Pheromone in Brunei.

I have a very strong feeling that it will work since it works well in Sabah and Sarawak.

He wanted me to share some pictures recently send to me:

The List Of Things That I Planned To Install At Chenderong Balai BH !!!

Initially I though this Chenderong Balai BH is a piece of cake  !!!

Simple and straight forward conversion.

Add a few things and it will be done.

However after observing the birds response to those external sounds I think I was terribly wrong.

There must be some ways to make them a bit more attractive to the BH especially at the main entrance hole.

Inside the BH I need a bit more focus in reducing the heat plus creating the right environment for those reluctance visitors.

First focus shall be to increase the number of external sound calling tweeters at the entrance hole areas.

If there are sounds there will be a number of swiftlet that will drop by to play with those tweeters.

The chances of each to enter the BH is more than 50%.

What I thought of doing was to install a number of power tweeters, about 7 of them, to be used during peak hours.

The next external sound playing tweeters were two hexagonal tweeters.  The new unit was installed above the roof while the old unit was relocated to be just above the side entrance hole. The two shall be connected to the external sound played from 6:30 am till 8:30 pm.

My extra powered external sound playing tweeter was this 4 foot long Bazooka.  It was located on the monkey house roof and facing the flying path.  It was directed to about 45* towards the sky.

Beside the above there will be a number of bullet tweeters installed at the side and top entrance areas.

The whole entrance areas will be noisy more like a "house party" from now on.

Inside I planned to use this new ideas of playing two internal sounds similar to the arrangements done at Sungai Rambai.

The pink colored connected tweeters shall be running Babyking while the green colored connected shall be those "internal mating" sounds.

The two combination will make those birds feel more attracted as if there are nests with young birds and many are mating too.

This new idea have not been proven but I have this gut feelings that it will work.

The idea came when I saw this new Tecnik amplifier with two sound readers on each unit.

I have a very strong feeling that this new discovery will be a kind must have inside every BH.

The next thing you should do is to find the right sounds to play on it.

If you need some ideas on how to use the unit please come and visit the Chenderong Bali BH.

Call 017 7551318

Overlapping Nests !!!

(A dual nests.  Who do you think is the new neighbor?)

Have a good look at the picture above and ask yourself.

Who do you think owned the new looking nest?

If I am right the neighbor must be the young swiftlet that was hatched and raised inside the old nest.

So if they like it so much to be very closed to their parent you need to do something about it.

Read my article at:  http://swiftletfarming.blogspot.com/2013/09/will-those-young-birds-return-to-build.html


Enjoy reading my friend.

As usual I always have new things that I discovered.

Everything that was discovered is shared with you.

Chanderong Balai BH Heat Shielding Operation !!!

(Heat Shielding operation started on the top floor)

It takes almost two hours to drive from Kuala Lumpur to Chanderong Balai (CB) BH.

On the first few days I have decided to shuttle up and down.  However after three days my whole body was aching like being stem rolled by those road rollers.

I think I need to stay up there at a small budget hotel like I usually does at other places.

One of my most important task at CB BH was to heat shield the two floors.

Initially I put my recommendation to only heat shield the top most floor which was hitting 31.8*C (max).

The owner wanted the same heat shielding for the middle floor too.

This is not something very common but to me a good decision.

Yesterday while the job was ongoing the owner dropped by and told him to view the operation.

Something that make him happy was the temperature different between the top floor and the middle floor.

We started with the top most floor and once completed we will move to the middle floor.

While the work was on going the temperature between the top and bottom starter to show a big different.

The middle floor, usually cooler than the top, was hitting at 31.9*C while the top, with heat shield half done, was 30*C.

The temperature drop on the top floor was due to the heat shield layer, I told the owner.

Once completed I would think that the room temperature  for both floors will be around 28-29*C.

This is how effective this heat shield idea is all about.

I sincerely hope once the nesting rooms temperature is around 28-29*C, those swiftlet will lift their blacklist.

Please come in and check for yourself.  I shall be pleading with those swiftlet to lift the ban.

The method works and I hope to get a detail report once the BH is completely heat shield.

Those of you who have similar problem please copy this idea.

If you are not sure just call 017 7551318.

There are other methods but this method which I have discovered and implemented is the cheapest and the fastest.

It leaved very little smell once completed.

The birds reaction will be immediate.

Trust me.

Chenderong Balai BH Revamp Project: Started !!!

(This was the sign that indicated that you have arrived Chenderong Balai).

This might be the last job for 2013 for me and my crew.

The Chenderong Balai BH is a three stories stand alone building about 20 feet by 70 feet by 9 feet high per floor.

The two floors, top and middle, were completed as a BH while the ground floor was used as a house.

It was mentioned that this BH was put into operation about two years with only two visible nests.

The two nests were abandoned due to some reasons and I was asked to look into bringing them back.

I mobilized my crew to site on September 18th 2013 and make a number of observations.

The BH was on a piece of land close to some padi fields and palm oil trees.

The walls of the BH was single layered however the roof was installed with those asbestos roofing sheet about 3 -4 feet above the top most ceiling.

The BH internal temperature seems to hit about 31.8*C and I think some kind of heat shield will help to bring down the temperature to below 29*C.

If you looked at the asbestos roof, the extension, was lesser than 1.5 feet long.  It would be better if the extension was 3-4 feet.  The shadow will help to reduce direct sunlight onto the walls.

The next unusual observation was the number of ventilation holes on the main walls.  It was only one per beam length on the main while at the breath it was about 8.

The BH was initially designed with one entrance method i.e. via top entrance but was recently introduced with one new side entrance hole.

The most strange and unusual was the reaction of those swiftlet to all my external sounds played.

They seems to have some unexplained reasons for not reacting to all those "effective" sounds.

The only sounds that they showed some attraction were those oldies that I rarely used any more.

The number of them reacted was still below my expectation.

This might be due to several reasons.

The first is due to not the mating season.  Usually when they wanted to mate and get paired they will react more positive to your BH external sounds.

Second might be this particular BH must have been black listed by these flock of birds. There are many reasons why they black list this BH but one most important might be the high temperature inside.

The third have something to do with the number of swiftlet that were observed flying on the roof top.  There were a couple of times that the "swiftlet' turned up to be the white spotted swift that flew closed to the roof.  These whited spotted swift give no reaction to external sounds.

The number of birds that flew above this BH was about 200-250, which was a bit too little to a normal standard.

Whatever says and done my crew and me will be busy with our plans.

The first thing which we have started were the followings:

1) Installation of additional external sound tweeters at the entrance areas.

2) Heat shielding of both floors.

You are always welcome to site and visit us.

Call 017 7551318 if you wish to come and view the BH during our revamp operation.

Bring some mineral water if you happen to pass by.

(Front view of the three stories BH, stand alone)

(Front its back)

(Inside )

(It used the staircase as LAL.  Staircase was more than 5 feet)

(The nesting planks arrangements and little tweeters)

(The hexagonal tweeter and the top entry hole areas.

Can U see something standing up? A 4 feet Bazooka.)

(One of the still visible nest)

(Second nest)

(My worker fixing the power tweeters)

Do You Think The Number Of External Tweeters Are Too Many ???

I received a phone call and the person who called asked me: "Don't you think the number of external sound tweeters are a bit too many?"

Frankly speaking the answer is yes !!!

But what was his motive when he posted his question?

According to him there were some people who put too many and those birds simply refuse to enter the BH.

He might be right but my answer to him is it depend on the external sound chosen.

I think if the sound is proper and the distribution of external sound tweeters inside are well arranged those birds will enter your BH.

The main purpose to install more tweeters outside is to get the attention of more birds passing by the BH.

It will be the duty of the sound to pull them in based on how and where you wanted them to be.

A good example was the Sungai Rambai BH.

After installing all the external sound tweeters and tested with Super AXX, I set and watch those birds behaviors.

Nearly all that responded to the external sound will circle the monkey house for at least one time and the next circle will be straight towards the entrance hole.

The key point is to get the attention of every bird that passed over or closed to the BH especially during the late evening.

I estimated that more than 150 birds entered the BH on the last day before we left the BH.

I am looking at doubling the nests population within the next 6-8 months.

Will monitor the BH for at least six months and report of any progress.

An email from one of my blog reader dated September 20th 2013:

Quote:

Hi Harry,

I agree with your "Pooling" sound tweeters design and installation.

However, you are not the first person do it this way. In August 2011, my B/H in Gambang was not doing well. 

I revamp the B/H inclusive of adding 28 pieces of external tweeters around the air well, all the tweeters are in 45 degrees pointing to the sky. 

Also the guiding tweeters all way till the ground floor. 

Removed all obstructions and create smooth swiftlet entering path (min. 15 feet radius, the bigger the better.)into the nesting areas.

The B/H is OK now. ---- 1kg in 3 months and is growing.

Regards,

Unquote

I Prefer More Of The 90* Corners !!!

 (90* Corners with 90* fake nests sprayed with super pheromone)

If you wish to lure more birds to stay give them what they love to have.

Beside giving them the thing they love you add additional gadgets to make them quickly erect their nests.

Precisely what I did inside this Sungai Rambai (SR) BH.

One of the thing which attract many birds are the 90* corners.

I could not find any at SR BH since the contractor covered them will those curved corners.

What I did was to select those crossings which I think will be a good choice for those young birds.

Once identified I will remove the 90* curved corners and make sure the surface were cleaned and free from any nails.

The wood will be wire brushed and I will then install those 90* styrofoam fake nests.

The idea is to give what they love to have and at the same time add additional gadget that will secure their stay.

Oh yah I also spray some Super Pheromone liquid on the fake nests.

Have a look at these photos and may be you should think about doing the same.

(First select)

 

(Remove the curved corners)

 (Install the 90* styrofoam corners)

A Little Bit Of Water Here and There !!!

This was how the Sungai Rambai BH owner keep his BH humid.

He keep water inside lots of plastic containers.

The containers were all over the place and I told him that I will create those pools to store water.

The pools will be about 8 feet by 12 feet and on each floor I will install at least two.

The water will be about 2 inches deep and it will have about 8'X12'=72 square feet of exposed water surfaces.

This will make the BH humid and much easier to top up if the water dry up.

To avoid mosquito from breeding I sprinkled about 2 packets of abed-e powder.

The good thing about the use of this technique as compared to those wet floor is that there is no need to carry those fine sand upstairs.

The task to carry such a heavy load deter the operation.

Have a look at a few of these ponds supplemented with a few chicken coop humidifiers.

I reused the containers since they do served to humidify the BH.

Also wet the floor.