Lukut BH Under Revamp Operation !!!

After scrutinizing my visit report for about 2 days, the Lukut BH owner called me to start work.

"Harry I want you to finish the revamp works withing 4 days." he said.

I was not very happy over the short period of time given.

My main worry is that if I hurry to finish my boys might skip some of those things that I wanted them to finish.

I told the owner not to push me to finish because I prefer to make sure that the final work done is proper.

In meeting his budget I focus on the middle floor.

Today if not because of the power supply I might have wrapped up the partitions erection.

There was no power supply for almost two hours and we need to forget entering the BH after 6:00pm.

When I left for Kuala Lumpur the power supply was still not on.

There are a number of things to bring over tomorrow and I hope I can be back in Lukut before lunch hour.

Hope to finish the scope of work by Monday or Tuesday.

A Four Stories BH With Lots Of Space To Spare !!!

One of the six BHs visited was this four stories unit located somewhere between Paka and Dungun.

The owner was an old friend who happened to join the visit to the various BHs in Dungun recently.

"Pak Harry I would like you to visit my BH and advise what is wrong with it?" his request.

I told him that there is nothing wrong to see his BH and after the tour I told him the followings:

1) His BH is simply too big and there are lots of space to let.

2) His floor size is about 40 feet wide by 80 feet long.  If 80% is occupied in full he will be having about 64 kilograms of raw nests per floor.

3) He should not waste too much efforts in populating the whole four floors but focus on at least one floor or the most two floors.

4) Shut the other two floors and work on the top two floors.

5) What about the lay out?  I told him that after the tour I find it very confusing and too many partition walls.  He should make it simpler and less walls.

6) He painted nearly all his internal walls with black paint.  This is not the right thing to do.  My advise is to paint those walls that are causing those bright sunlight from entering too much but remember those swiftlet need the morning light to guide them out of the BH.  Which mean that you need to allow some light to enter your BH.

7) The flying path from the main entrance hole to the furthest part of the nesting room was a bit too difficult and a few sharp turns.  He need to re look into those poorly located doors or perhaps re orientate some of his BH partitions.

8) He uses nearly all kind of BH aromas.  The H1N1, the black portion, love portion,  the super pheromone and etc.  I am of the opinion that he should focus on one not all in one go. Try to concentrate on the one that will give result and expand them to further populate the BH.  If you continue to test so many one day those birds will simply fly away.

   I hope he will be able to continue looking after his BH and maybe one way those birds will multiply and populate all the floors.

How To Force Your Tenants To Use The Flat Part Of The Nesting Planks !!!

During my recent visit to six BHs in two days I was asked by one of the BH owner on what steps he should do next.

Nearly all the four BHs he owned seems to be reasonably populated but most of it were at the 90* corners.

I advised him that he need to do something to encourage his tenants to populate the flat areas so that the nests qualities fetch a higher value.

He is well aware that the price of 90* corner nests is way much lower in value as compared to those 180* cup shape nests.

"So Harry what do you think I should do with my BHs? " he asked.

My answers to him were as follows:

1) The time have come that you should look into getting your BH tagged.  The nests numbers is climbing and it will be good if he can get all the four BHs be registered with Jabatan Veterina.  All he need to do was to contact the nearest office and fill up some forms.

2) The next think he should start to look at is how to reduce those 90* shape nests.  All the four BHs are having a kind of 80%-90% with 90* shape nests.  The best is to try to use suitable corner covers that will prevent those swiftlet from repeating making the 90* nests shape.  My recommendation was to use those stainless steel plates to cover all those corners that are currently with 90* nests.

3) The stainless steel plate about 6"X 6"X1mm plate should be with a kind of grooves 1cm apart and with four holes at each corners.  The holes must be tapered to ensure a flush surface when anchored onto the nesting planks.

4) The next thing he should start looking at is to force those birds to colonies the flat surfaces.  This was what I wanted him to do.  Use those perfume bottles and Styrofoam fake nests (picture above).  Once they populate the fake nests and used the same for two cycles he should remove those fake nests and the bottle.

5) Used the 2X concentration super pheromone liquid as the aroma to fill the bottles.

6) He should also use the 3X pheromone to spray onto the fake nests.

7) If the result is good and immediate the way to go is to apply the concentrated liquid on all his nesting planks surfaces.

I hope he will adopt the above recommendations soon and see if this new idea works.

I will be monitoring his BH progress and hopefully the above idea can be deployed to all the rest of BHs that are under my care.

A BH Owner Wanted My Professional Opinion About His Newly Acquired BH!!!

Just arrived home after a two days trip to Kuantan and Dungun.

I visited 6 BHs in Kuantan (1) , Cenih (1) and Dungun (4) during the two days.

Three BH owners in total.

One of whom owned four BHs.

Among the many I was asked to comment about a BH that was purchased about two to three months ago.

This BH owner engaged me just to have my professional opinion after signing off almost RM 200,000.

"Harry can you tell me what do you think about this BH?"  he asked.

After about 35-40 minutes walking up and down the two floors BH I told him this simple words.

"You have a big potential BH and looking at the workmanship I think you did a good buy."

I sincerely told him that he can do some internal modification as per list of recommendation it will be a big cash cow.

The location looks to be very well placed.

The entrance hole, a monkey hole type, was erected at the front part facing the morning sun.

The BH walls were of double wall type.

The nesting planks used were fined.

The finishing on the walls and the ceiling were good.

The only bad thing that I was not happy about were the followings:

Both nesting floors were too bright.

There was no VIP room on both floors.

The number of internal sound tweeters were a bit on the low side.

There was not a single external sound tweeter inside the nesting room.

There was not a single fake nest.

The floor was a bit too dry.

The humidifiers need some kind of service and upgrade.

I gave him a few ideas on what he could do and promised him that after doing them correctly the number of nests will be double within 4 months.

He was smiling all the way after catching those good words that I have said about his beautiful decision.

Will write about the other five one by one.

Birdcall Test In Felda Cini: Very Strange Results !!!

I nearly wanted to tell a Dato who arranged for my service to forget about Felda Cini BH erection.

Main reason being the Duress sound played brings only two birds (swiftlet).

A very strange and weird experience but the next day in the morning the number of birds responding was more than 260.

This happened on the evening of March 19th 2014.

The moment we arrived at site we sat down with a few officers running the operation of a Sentuhan Kasih agricultural complex.

The person in charge posted a number of very intelligent question about swiftlet farming and I answered all of them to the best of my knowledge.

I was later informed that this particular guy was working with a swiftlet farming project in Sedili.

He used to be the project manager but left after the project faced a number of big problems.

After checking in into a resort we drove back to the identified location as runs the Duress sound.

Keep hoping for something to happen however after more than 30 minutes only two came to look see the gadget.

I was very disappointed  and in my mind I think there is something not right.

We are in the middle of a huge palm oil plantation and yet only 2 swiftlet?

 

(One of the two swiftlet responded during the evening test)

There are many possible reasons to explain why but I told the executive that the morning test will be much batter.

I explained to the executive that those birds are now at some areas where there are water like pond, lakes or rivers.

Tasik Cini was about 15 kilometers away and I think most of these birds are there now.

The following morning we woke up early and arrived closed to the test area.

When we were about to pass a small pond about 500 meters from the tested location, I told the driver to stop.

Look at the number of swallows mainly martin flying above the water surface.

Why don't we conduct our test here?

He found a suitable place to park the 4 wheel drive and I took the test gadget out.

The moment the sound was played there were at least 50 birds.

The number grew until we have almost 260 swiftlet above us.

They continue circling above the test gadget but more often flew high above it.

After about 30 minutes I stop the sound and we head home.

The test was okay it the number of swiftlet responded was above the minimum number chosen.

I felt relieved and the outcome was a positive one.

Hope the good news reach the Dato soon.

Will submit an official report and hopefully will recommend that proper size BH plus all the gadgets to be installed inside.

Call me if you wish to let me conduct a bird call test at your piece of land.

 

(Where the van was parked)

 

(This small lake on the left)

 

(this one on the right)

The Wrong Location Of Where The Monkey House Was Erected !!!

The moment I survey the BH from the outside I can easily make some predictions on what is happening inside this Lukut BH.

"Mr C I have to tell you that the monkey house location is not properly located.  You will face a lot of space problem since the light from your window is too much."

I was on the dot.  The moment I entered the middle floor I saw the damage.

The owner have two windows on the monkey house tunnel's walls.

One facing the front and one more facing the back.

The two windows were large about 6 feet wide and 4 feet high.

You can imagine how bright the floor was.

He recently erected a wall but it was not adequate in blocking those bright light.

After some thinking I told him to revamp the floor as per my sketch:

What I wanted him to do are as follows:

1) Shut the window at on the wall facing the back wall.

2) Reduce the size of the remaining window, facing the front, to about 3'x4'.  Currently 6'X4'.

3) Erect a wall a such a VIP room is created at the front of his BH floor.  The door opening must be about 3' wide floor up.

4) I also insisted that another wall to be erected to further block the light coming from the 3'x4' windows.

5) I wanted another VIP room to be erected at the back of the floor.  Another partition with a door of about 3.5 feet wide floor up to the beam.

If these recommendation is done I assured him that those couples who currently stays will soon erect their nests.

The reason why they refuse to erect their nest was the floor brightness.

See if I am wrong.

If you are facing the same problem call this number 017 7551318.

The Wrong Way Of Installing Your Internal Sound Tweeter Found At Lukut !!!

 

(A wrong way to install those internal sound tweeters) 

After more than 3 years the Lukut BH has only about 5-6 nests.

Can you imagine the frustration inside this BH owner?

Well he is not alone.

There are many thousands more have the same experience that he has.

"Harry I have invested at least RM400K and after three years only 5-6 nests.  Every month the cost of utility is about 60 ringgit."

The return of investment is not good at all and he regretted for making that decision.

"I should have earn a better and steady income if I have put in into a mutual fund"

Well a decision was made and the only thing that he need to do now is to perhaps find ways to correct his investment.

He was very lucky to have discovered me and told me that he has been reading my blogs for sometime.

What make him to contact me was his happiness when I inform him about all those revamp jobs that helps many sick birdhouse.

During my visit to his BH I listed all the things that were not proper in it.

One very disturbing error was the way those

internal sound tweeters were installed.

I did highlighted the same error before but let me repeat about this same error.

The installer should be more sensitive to the needs of those young couples.

If they love to cling to the internal sound tweeters give it to them.

Try not to make life very difficult to them.

The way those internal sound tweeters stuck to the ceiling (look at the above picture) is wrong.

Why done we allow them to hang on it and their body touches the tweeter?

Use my cluster tweeter arrangement techniques.

 

(The right way of tweeters installation, look at the nests all over the place?)

Increase the tweeters numbers to at least 150-180 pieces on each floor.

Put them into two on alternate crossing joins.

I sketched the design configuration and told him that this would make those young couples to stay put in his BH and soon build their nests around the tweeters.

So if you BH have the same tweeters installation please call me at 017 7551318.

Let me help you with some proven methods.

 

(Also not right)

How Big A Fake Nest Have You Ever Encountered?

 

(A Styrofoam Fake nest that is too big)

In my entire history in swiftlet farming I have never came across a fake nest as big as a clay brick.

Not exactly the size of a full brick but half of it.

I think we need to think carefully what size a Styrofoam fake nest should be.

My recommendation is  five inches long, one inch thick and one inch wide is good enough.

I was carrying out a BH inspection yesterday at Lukut, N9.

During my investigation I saw this huge chunk of Styrofoam half brick size stuck to the nesting planks.

There were not many about 5-6 pieces.

I asked the BH owner who gave him the idea?

It came from some good friend.

I shook my head and told him that while I encourage the installation of fake nests I disagree with his selection of size.

The interesting observation was that one or two of the six do show some bird shit spots below them.

During the coffee break at a nearby coffee shop I highlighted to him the exact scenario why fake nests are important in a new BH.

My explanations to him about fake nests are as follows:

1) Fake nests are a crucial part of any BH especially during the early stage of a BH.

2) It served as a lure to encourage those young couples to quickly start their nest building experiences.

3) A proper shape is important to help them to start the nest building.  If must not be too small or too big.  In his case it was just too big.

4) Fake nests should be used for a short time or on a temporary basis. It must be removed once those young couple used the fake nests for two cycle.

5) Try to focus the installation mainly inside the VIP rooms.

6) The fake nests can be more effective if they are installed closed to where those internal sound tweeters are installed.  One on the left and one on its right.

7) The number of fake nests to be installed is up to the BH owners.  I prescribe at least one for each internal sound tweeter.  Two will be okay.

8) The best fake nest size is 5"x1"x1".  You can buy a one inch thick Styrofoam at any stationary shop and cut them into the size mentioned.

9) You need to use two 1.25" screw to encore them onto the nesting planks.

10) Usually from my observation the number of these fake nests being occupied is around 10-15%.

11) If you wish to increase the occupancy rate of the fake nests I told him to spray or apply those super pheromone liquid.

12)  You might also want to install a 90* shape fake nests made of Styrofoam.  Cut the styrofoam into a square shape piece 2"x2" and cut them diagonally.

13) The 90* shape fake nests is good to be inserted at those wood crossings.

14) Do the same installation using two screws and once done spray with super pheromone.

Remember you need to use them on a temporary basis to lure those young couples to start their first nest.

Also remember that the moment they laid their first egg inside your BH they will be your tenant forever or until they die.

You need to remove them on stages.  The best is to take the fake nest out together with the nest on it once the couple used the nest twice or two breeding cycles.

These fake nests with real nest on it can be recycled by moving them to a new location.

For this case try to move the fake nest away from the area where it was taken out.

Move them to another floor or another BH.

Try to use this idea yourself and just prove me wrong.

Call me at 017 7551318017 7551318 for any extra information.

You can also write to me using my email harryswiftlet@yahoo.com

 

(Use this picture to imagine its size.  The square tweeter is 3"x3")

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Dungun Trip Is Today !!!

This morning at about 11:30am will be leaving for Dungun. Trengganu.

A blog reader wanted me to take a look at his land in Dungun.

Will take at least 5 hours to reach there.

Once reached home will write about what he wanted me to tell him.

This particular person currently owned about 4 BHs and wanted to expand to the 5th.

He has been in contact with me for all his new activities in swiftlet farming.

He said that he wanted to be very sure before investing his money.

The best is to have a professional person who can tell him how big is the risk he is taking.

A very good way of handling something that you know that your knowledge is very limited.

Will write something about it plus perhaps some pictures.

Bird Counting System: After Three Days Of Data Capturing !!!

The first thing to check upon arrival at Kapar BH was the screen on a tablet attached to the bird counting machines.

This time after three days the number surged to 562 of line crossings.

I am not very sure if they entered and stayed or playing in and out game.

The moment these birds crossed those invisible grids the machine will count as one activity.

If they happened to fly out, the machine will still count another activity crossing or passing the grid.

However on the third day the number recorded was very high.

For record purposes, there are only about 65 nests in this BH.  This would meant that the total number of birds should be 65X2= 130 plus perhaps another 20 young birds to give us the approximate number of 150 birds.

How come the number jumped to 562?

I have a very strong feeling it was due to the new external sound I choose to play.

Would you like to guess what sound was it?

Simple, "Black Cloud".

This very powerful sound seems to pull more birds to enter into the BH and some might be overexcited as such they will fly in and out of the window.

I will try to capture another picture of the screen every time I visit this BH.

My next trip might be next weekend.

Somewhere Along The Road From Lukut to Sepang !!!

Another interesting BH with so many flaws that makes the owner confused on why those birds refuse to populate after almost three years into operation.

The owner got my contact via my blog and called me for an investigation.

I happened to be free so I make the one hour trip from Kuala Lumpur.

Met him at a Petrol station in Lukut town and followed him to the BH location.

The BH from outside looks okay however something was not right with the monkey house location.

The monkey house was not at the end of the building but a bit towards the middle.

During my external survey I voiced my displeasure with the monkey house construction.

I sincerely told him that I don't like the position of the monkey house since it will effect the lighting and will waste a lot of precious nesting space.

The first floor visited was the ground and then the middle , the top floor and later the rooftop areas.

My summary of this BH are as follows:

a) There were a number of flaws that should have been avoided.  The first is the location of the monkey house.  I was correct about the waste of precious space.

b) The next weird thing found inside was the LAL (the connecting hole between the middle floor and the ground floor) positioning.  It was wrongly located.

c) The floor that hold the largest number of bird shit spots was the middle. I recommended to the owner to focus on this floor.

d) He did a small wall to block those bright light but it was still too bright inside.

e) One very common mistake was the way those internal sound tweeters were installed.  They were too closed to the ceiling and giving very little advantages to those swiftlet.

g) The BH owner install a few fake nests but his fake nest was too big, 4"x3"x3".

h) The internal sound used was a modified babyking sound.

i) His external sound was not the one that I would like to continue using.

j) The monkey house was with two entrance hole one facing the West and the second was the South.

k) The hexagonal tweeter was not at the right location.

l) Both internal and external sound amplifiers were in a set of two amplifiers.  He got them running and change every 15 minutes or so.  I told him that every time his amplifier changes there will be a gap of missing sound.

m) He uses two water ponds plus two chicken coop humidifiers for his humidity control.

After about 40 minutes of looking around I summarized everything in a 10 pages report.

I think if he follow all the things I recommended the BH should be okay.

Let see if he needed my workers to fix to my specifications.

A Method To Not Only Count The Number of Birds Entering But Also Leaving !!!

What if I tell you that I can count the number of birds that entered my BH from 7:00 pm till say 8:30pm without standing outside your BH and holding a counter?

Also you are not having a CCTV screen in front of you?

What if I can sent to you using SMS messages telling you how many birds entered your main entrance hole from the prescribe time you wanted to check?

Well well well.

I think the answer is yes.

I have been thinking and looking into this idea long ago and today managed to test the system.

Today from 7:00 pm till 8:00 pm the number of birds that entered the Kapar BH was 387.

 

(The clock timing was out by one hour but the counting started at 7:00pm till 8:00pm)

This was recorded on the screen and tomorrow the machine will count during the same set time of how many birds will enter the same window.

This is a very great day to test something new and reduce the daily hassle to count the number that entered your BH.

The project is still at Testing stage and I hope once tuned I will be able to provide you the cost and how to install the gadget.

Beside checking the number of birds entering you can also use the same gadget to check how many birds left the BH once you switch off the external sound.

Call me if you wanted to try one set.

My telephone number is 017 7551318017 7551318

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Kapar BH After Some Changes At The Main Entrance Hole !!!

 

(They simply flocked to the entrance hole)

At last the rain started to pour.

I was at Kapar BH helping my workers with those fake nests installations for half day.

I think I installed at least 250 pieces on the middle floor and have another 250 for the top and ground floors.

The best that was done today March 17 2014 was the installation of additional tweeters at the main entrance hole.

Previous arrangement was not adequate and I insisted that it have to be upgraded.

What I did was to install two sets of pole tweeters, 3 pieces of AG35 tweeters, on each side of the window frame and two more on the wooden beam that was used to shut the top part of the window.

The hexagonal which was installed three days ago is doing well too.

Today with the heavy rain in the late afternoon seems to attract lots of birds coming to the BH window nearly the whole day.

The thick wet air might be stimulating those swiftlet to wanting to find a house to stay or nest making.

I was very happy with the number of birds responded to a number of good sound in my collection.

Activated the Mutiara Aroma mist spray and at the same time applied the Super 3X on a selected number of fake nests inside the VIP rooms.

See the attached video clips just for your reference:

 

(The hexagonal Tweeter was not there before this)

On My Way To Cini, Pahang !!!

Today I will shortly start my journey to a small town called Cini.

Main purpose is to conduct site survey for a client who wanted to see if the land there is suitable for swiftlet farming.

This client of mine is the same who engaged me earlier to test a land in Tenggaroh 3 in Johor.

The idea is to check if the number of birds responding to the Duress sound is good enough.

If the respond is good I might need to visit the surrounding to see if there are any other relevant things that might be of help to the owner.

Will come back and write a short report about this trip this weekend.

If you too wanted to engage my service for land test please call 017 7551318

Super Performance Of "SuperBabyKing" In Tawau Sabah !!!

 

(This BH is currently using SuperBabyKing Internal sound)

I was on my way to Tenggaroh Johor when I received a whatsapp message from Tawau, Sabah.

"Am I wright to say that your SuperBabyKing is very very attractive to the birds? Three of us checked all the rooms and confirmed that almost 95% of new marking are at those tweeters".

His new message after a few questions:

"I played it for about 2 weeks after the rooms were completed.  The main reason to attribute to this outcome should be due to the rooms and the superbabyking."

He also confirmed that 99% were inside the rooms about 70% of which were inside the VVIP room.  Remaining at the VIP room.

This BH owner was with me during my last trip to Tawau.

He specifically fetched me and we set straight to his BH after that.

After two visits I wrote to him my report and he carried out the needful recently.

Just after finishing the erection of the rooms (VIP and VVIP) he changed his internal and external sounds.

What happened next is a per the about whatsapp messages.

I told him to continue monitoring and apply those super pheromone too.

Will see what will be the next report after his revamp works.

Those of you who happenned to read this article and would like to have me to inspect your BH please call me at 017 7551318.

The chances of improving your BH is pretty high if you carry out my recommendations.

The Tenggaroh Birdcall Test Results !!!

 

The Birdcall test gadget used to conduct the birdcall test at Tenggaroh

Two of the many video clips taken during site inspection at Tenggaroh Agricultural Park:

The first:

The second:

A Very Small Town Call Tenggaroh 3, Daerah Mersing, Johor !!!

(The Tenggaroh Sentohan Kasih Agricultural Project)

I was engaged by a company to check if this location is suitable to start a BH.

The town is new and I was very impressed with the surrounding.

According to the input provided, this new township project started about one year ago (2013).

The idea was to implement something that is new in agriculture.

The participants about 100 couples were selected from Felda settler's family in the district.

Each of the participant was given a home and a kind of full time job to become a modern farmer.

They will be paid a monthly salary and their job is in running a green house complex growing golden melons, fish and chicken breeding.

The fish are breed in tanks and their waste are collected, added with specially formulated fertilizer and used to feed to those melon trees.

Once those melons are harvested the tree waste will be grinned and added with food supplements to  fed to chicken.

Again they hold these chickens in a dent above another type of fish pond.  The chicken waste drops directly into the fish pond below it.

It is more like a complete cycle and nothing go to waste.

At the moment the farm focus on golden and rock melons.

The fish types are those of talapia, catfish and jade perch.

A very new concept and I think the concept is new in Malaysia and should be expanded to a larger scale.

It provide jobs to a 100 family.

A bit to many workers but maybe one day the number of green houses and those fish ponds can be increased.

Okay where do I come in?

I was engaged to check if the location, around this new farm, is suitable for swiftlet farming.

I was there on March 14th and came back on May 15th 2014.

Conducted a number of bird call tests and inspected a number of locations to find out if there are any BHs in the vicinity.

The number of birds responded were within the minimum range and I would say that there is a strong chance of success if a properly designed BH is erected.

There is no competitor within 15 miles radius, near to the sea and located in the middle of a palm oil plantation.

Have some fun withe some pictures taken: