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Monday, December 8, 2014

Kuala Rompin: A Worth While Two Days Visit !!!



I am very pleased to inspect a BH owned by one of my blog reader from Singapore.

He wanted me to take a good look at his empty (building completed but yet to install those nesting planks and sound system) BH and advice him on what shall be done.

The trip was long and it took nearly 4.5 hours to reach from Kuala Lumpur.

The moment I arrived I called him and picked him up with the door keys.

We were there inspecting floor by floor.

I have the following good thing to say about his BH:

1) Kuala Rompin used to be called the Hot Spot for swiftlet farming in Peninsular Malaysia.  By having a BH in this location it will be a not so difficult task to populate a BH if properly designed and good sound selection.

2)The BH location is not bad since it was very closed to two big water catchment areas.  One is a natural lake while the other is a man made dam.

3) The BH location is along the road to the Endau Rompin Forest Reserve.  The forest have be gazetted as a restricted areas.  The thick virgin jungle will be a great source of insects.

3) He bought a unit sand witched in between a few other BHs in an Government approved swiftlet Eco park.  There were a few BHs that are showing signs of high numbers of nests.  The rooftop areas were with lots of birds flying nearly most of the time during my visit.

4) His BH is with the MCMC RFID tag.  This will be a big advantage when those nests are ready for harvesting and export to China.

5) His BH entrance hole (top entry) is facing the east (North-East).  Another advantage which will ensure that those birds can stay further away from the entrance hole areas.

On the negative side I have the following to say:

a) The BH design was not proper or by those architect who have very little ideas about swiftlet farming.  The layout was a bit unsatisfactory to my standard.

b) The BH with no light on were very bright.  Not one area passed my specification (2 feet apart you cannot see each other).

c) I was very disturbed to see how the ventilation holes were provided.  The architect used those bricks with holes (as many as 25 of them) which allows bright light to pollute all the nesting rooms.  I told the owner that we need to shut them with a layer of cement board but with a 1.5 inch gap.

d) All the 28 units were using the top entry type of openings.  I told the owner that he should opt for a monkey house if he wanted to be different from the rest.

e) If you want to enter the three floors above the ground floor you need to climb a staircase outside the building.  This is the first time I entered a BH where the owner have to opened four doors.

f) The highest floor is with two LAL (lubang antara lantai) holes and I think that is a bit excessive.  I told the owner that I need to shut one of the LAL hole.

g) There were more then one main entrance window/door into the nesting room.  One was a door about 4 feet wide by 10 feet high and a window about 2.5 feet by 2 feet.  The amount of light entering the third floor is unacceptable.  The main door size need to be reduced while the window to be totally shut down.

h) The BH was a bit short (70 feet long) by 20 feet wide.  The top floor after allocating about 15 feet for the top entry area and another 15 for the roving and LAL left the nesting room about 40 feet long.

i) The lower floors especially the third and the second looks more promising to start with.  My recommendation to him was to focus on the two floors and shut the other two (top and ground floors).

j) The ground floor was reported to be flooded up to about three feet high.  Just imagine if the amplifiers were place on the ground floor.

The above are just my observations and will make a bit more report about what I plan to do with this BH.

My hint: It have to be different from the rest.

Took these pictures just to share with you all.

If the owner give me the green light to proceed with the installation of wood and sound system, I would love to invite all of you to come and see what I will be doing inside.

Call me at 017 7551318 to set the date.






















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