Ajil BH: Block Those Lights From Ventilation Holes !!!

Very often I came across BHs that uses those white colored PVC pipes and not grey colored at their ventilation holes pipes.

The reasons why those contractors uses the white types are as follows:

1) Their knowledge about swiftlet farming is almost zero or must have been guided by a wrong "sifu".  These sifus should be eliminated  across the boards so that they will not do more harm to swiftlet BHs.

2) The contractor simply follow the design given to him.  He disregards about the effect of those white pipes to your BH.  This kind of contractors should not be allowed to erect any BH.  Ask them to stay out of the industry and built only human houses or shop houses.

3)  The next culprit is the BH owner themselves.  They have little clue on the effect of those bright light coming from those holes during the daylight hours.

All in all the three above are lack of knowledge on why we need to make sure our BH is totally dark inside.

The simple rule of the thumb is to stand about 2 feet apart and you cannot see each other.

Any BH which you entered and you can see the back walls are not suitable for those birds.

What will happened if your BH is too bright?

1) You will have a very tough time to populate your BH.

2) Those birds that entered and stays will forever stays without mating.  Once they refuse to mate you will not have any nest.

3)  You will also see those bird shit spots on the floors where they died since your tenants keep moving from one spot to the next spot for a very long time.  Eventually if they cannot find the right spot they will move to another BH nearby.


The Ajil BH faced the same problem.

Not only those white colored pipes, the "sifu" install yellow bulbs that switched on every night till morning.

An wrongdoing that tells me that the so called "sifu" have little knowledge about what those swiftlet likes and dislikes.

In the case of Ajil BH, I eliminated all those bulbs and at the same time painted the white colored pipe black.

Have a look at all these pictures.

On the top of painting the pipes I also painted the VIP rooms black.

Newly Finished BH Ready To Be Installed With Nesting Planks And Sound System !!!

The owner of this BH is looking forward for my expertise to complete his newly fabricated BH.

During my recent trip his contractor was finishing up the wall plasterings.

Two of the four external walls were about to be completed while the other two might take at least 2 more weeks to be finished.

Took some time to inspect the internal finishing.

There were some interesting things observed and the walls were quite well done.

One of the top floor wall was not plastered.

There were a few places on the ceiling surfaces that need to be smoothen up.

The ventilation holes seems to be a bit different if you compare with other normal BHs.

The BH came with a kind of rectangular shape ventilation holes about 1'X10".

Hmm I wish I can think of how to cover the hole with some kind of a box so that the air flowing inside the BH can be controlled and at the same time the light will be low.

The BH was exactly the duplicate of another BH owned by the same owner about 1/2 a kilometer away.

He must have used the same diagram.

His main purpose was to provide additional rooms for his workers on the ground floor while the top two floors he turn them into BH.

Now he owned two units and I think if I can modify the second unit it will do much better then the before.

Enjoy yourself with these pictures taken during my last visit.

Karak BH: 2.5 Years With 70 Nests !!!

I was on my way home from Ajil when my phone received a message from some new to me.

I responded to his message which led me to view his BH on Thursday April 21st 2016.

I took about 1.25 hours to arrive at his farm.

Well this person who operate a BH is a white from Canada who married with a local and settled in Karak.

His main complain was why suddenly his nests number stop growing.

His 2nd main concern was why are they now nesting on the lower floors.

His BH is about 2.5 years old and so far with about 70 nests.

Nearly 85 % of the nests were on the top most floor.

So my tasks were to look at what were wrong and perhaps find the right solutions.

These list of findings might be interesting to note:

1) The BH dimension was 90'X30'X3 floors.  Each floor was with 10' high ceiling.

2) The BH was erected with a top entry hole and not a monkey house or opening on the wall.

3) The number of nests seems to be hovering around 70 nests after 2.5 years into operation.

4) Nearly 60 nests were found on the 3rd floor while the rests were on the two floors below.

5) Recently installed two humidifiers operated twice a day for about 2 hours.

6)  There were two hexagonal tweeters at the top entry area.

7) The top entry hole was only about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long.

8) The owner claimed to have revamped his BH by relocating the entrance door location to the top floor.  However he was not very sure if the walls and those tweeters were well orientated.

9) The number of internal sound tweeters for the whole house was only about 300 pieces.

10) Nearly all the 70 nests found inside this BH was either on the top of the internal sound tweeters or beside it.

11) There was not a single fake nests inside the BH.

12) All 90* corners were covered with corner covers.

13) The number of ventilation holes using 4" diameter pvc pipe looks like 48 units all with 90*elbows but were not covered with extension pipe.

14) Only two humidifiers were installed on the top floor and according to the BH owner that was also installed recently.

15) The only way down to the lower floor is via 2 LAL holes erected beside the 2 staircases.

16) There were a number of walls erected but little on the lowest floor.

17)  The sound system consisted of two amplifiers to play 2 external sounds.  Two more for those internal sound rotating 6 hours each.

18) The four amplifiers were not set to optimize the sounds played.

19)  I was not happy with the internal sounds used.  Not many baby sound in it.

20) Not much to say about the two external sounds.

21) All the floors were not cleaned.

Given the above scenarios I have to come out with action plans to perhaps double the nests population within 8-10 months.

So what do you think I should come out with?

Ajil BH: Strangely The Air Ventilation Holes We Found Only On the Top And Middle Floors !!!

Something that was not very appropriate found at Ajil BH.

While carrying out the revamp operation works I was a bit concerned over the ventilation holes of the BH.

First it was only made available on two floors and not the ground floor.

The second was that the holes were only on two walls and not all the four walls.

The thirds was the use of white colored PVC 4" diameter pipe that tend to brighten the nesting areas when those sun light hit on the building.

The total number of ventilation holes per floor (2 floors only) was about 20.  10 on the wall facing the west and 10 on the opposite wall.

The walls that faces the North and South were with not a single hole.

What make me wonder what was the contractor trying to do was on the ground floor there was not a single hole.

It might be okay if there are little number of nests however what happened when the floor is full?

Something that might be a disaster  when the ammonia gas could not be taken out of the BH and replaced with fresh air.

A few years ago I was told about a BH in Vietnam that went through a bad experience.

This BH was said to be filled to the brim with nests.

For some unknown reason those birds start to die in hundreds.

The owner was scared that it was some kind diseases attacking his birds.

The health authorities claimed that those dead birds were healthy and the main culprit was the lack of fresh air.

Once more ventilation holes were opened the BH was back to normal.

So what do you think I did to the Ajil BH.

Due to limited time available I suggest to the BH owner to find out if there are any service to bore those ventilation holes using specialized machine.

Once they have located it they should try to engage the contractor to drill additional holes in about 6-10 months from the day the BH was put into operation.

I hope they will do that earlier especially if the nests number increased drastically.

(Ventilation holes only on the back and front walls)

(No ventilation holes on its sides WALLS)

(All ventilation holes were of white PVC pipe)

(Glow like light bulbs when exposed to light)