Jerantut BH: Totally Abandoned BH But Highly Potential !!!

Just due to attack by owl this BH was shut down and abandoned.

Yesterday July 29th 2016 I was invited to view this 5 years old BH that was not in operation for almost 2 years.

The owner wanted it to be reactivated and perhaps upgrade some of those internal and external works.

It was constructed in 2012, according to the caretaker.

At first it was okay however after the roof was blown away and those owls keep visiting and staying inside he shut the whole place.

Now the real owner wanted it to be activated using some of the latest ideas from my experiences.

I took some time to have a look at the external, internal and the top roof areas.

My impression are as follows:

1) The location where it was erected is excellent.  On the top of a hill and have a lot of open areas around it.

2) The two stories building have a very strong potential.  During its hay days there were at least 30 nests in the BH.

3) The roof was blown away but can be easily repair using new heat insulation and water tight paint.  First we need to clear all those trusts and ceiling materials away.  Maybe water jet the surface and apply leak proof materials on the first day. Once dried we might be able to apply the heat insulation paint above the leak proof materials.

4) The current entrance system (top entry) can be easily upgraded  to a monkey house entry either steel frame covered with zinc roof sheet or maybe use those red bricks blocks.  Cement the bricks and put a roof on the monkey house.

5) The top floor was wrongly designed.  It was too bright due to poorly designed entrance windows about 8'x8' wide.  This particular wrong doing tells a lot about the person who designed this BH.  I can safely say that he don't really understand those birds characteristics.

6) Another major error was the LAL size and its position.  Totally at a wrong place and too big.  Again it tells me about how swiftlet  knowledgeable the designer was.

7) The current nesting planks were installed with 4'X4' box size.  This might be due to wanting to reduce the nesting planks cost or don't know what should be the optimum design arrangement of planks.  Again we can conclude that the person who installed these planks have not much knowledge about swiftlet farming.

Well there were a lot more errors but most important is its potential.

If I can be engaged to revamp this BH it will be easily populated with a very short time.

What I have done so far was to prepare the cost on all those materials to be installed and perhaps provide the time frame to complete the job,

Let us hope that my recommendations will be carried out.

Her Last Wish Is To Own & Operate A BH !!!

The BH with three stories 30' wide by 65' long

Something unusual but interesting to talk about.

I met an elderly lady who told her daughter that her only wish now is to own and operate a BH.

I was on my way to Carey Island BH when I received a text from her daughter who seems to be so eager to meet me face to face.

She must have google about swiftlet farming on the net and discovered my blogspot page.

I told her to wait for me at Plaza Damas within 1.5 hours so that I can return from Klang.

Upon arriving at the location I saw a number of ladies and one of them look elderly.

She must be in her 80th but was the one who insisted to meet up with me.

Her daughter confessed that her mom came to know about swiftlet farming from her Indonesian maid and bought a piece of land just beside her house in Taiping, Perak.

"Pak Harry can you visit the land and tell us the next step?" she asked me.

Well the nest weekend I was up there to view the land and put up a visit report about 25 pages.

The land looks okay except it was too closed to a number of residential houses.

If she can obtain the necessary approval from the local council it will be good to erect one.

There was a big pond about 10 meters away from the proposed land and at the same time there was also a BH about 30 meters away from the pond.

I described to her that the two plays a very important role if she should erect a BH on the spot she have chosen.

The water will be the best attraction area to those birds especially in the evening while the operating BH will be the young birds generator.

She seems to know which direction those birds are returning from.

With the flying path in the evening confirmed I describe to her which direction her main entrance hole should be facing.

A perfect location with a huge water pond, an operating BH, the morning sun direction and those birds flying home path.

The problem on the external sound can be easily tackled.

The thing that she needed to do now is to appoint a reliable architect to draw the building plans and submit to the local authority.

Once approve she need to appoint a local contractor.

I need to visit the architect plus during the building construction three to four time.

Once the BH is done I will take over to install those nesting planks and internal gadgets.

I hope god will be kind to her.

Hopefully she will enjoy to see those nests before she goes.

God bless her.

Sungai Ibor BH: After Five Years Of Operation !!!

Yesterday drove about 1 hour from Kuala Lumpur to visit this BH located somewhere in Pedas, Rembau N9.

My main aim was to help this BH owner who have difficulties to populate her 5 years old BH.

She send a message asking for help or to be more precise asking me to be a JV partner.

I responded and told her that I would like to view the BH first before making any decision.

When arrived at site her eldest son was there to show me around.

Unfortunately he could not obtain the keys from his younger brother.

"I dont know why he is not picking up his phone.  I am sorry Pak Harry" he told me.

Well a very disappointing trip and I could only look at the BH from the outside.

I gathered a few information and he explained what really happened.

The BH was erected about 5 years ago and he used a consultant from Kuala Trengganu.

The building was abandoned after half way.

He continued with the job using his own resources.

Sound very familiar to me.

Once the BH was so called completed his younger brother offer his service to look after the BH.

After five years into operation no one knows how many nests was in the BH.

I can only shake my head and now that same brother is missing in action.

The only thing that I can do was to tell the owner that I will be very happy to come back and view the inside once the BH keys are made available.

The BH looks okay about 30 feet wide by 80 feet long and 3 stories high.

The main entrance looks like a monkey house.

The walls was said to be a single layered made of those light weight bricks.

The external sound seems to be operating.

There was no hexagonal tweeter.

Nearly half of those ventilation holes were with no hole cover.

The whole area around the BH was covered with tall bush trees so much so that we cannot go near to the BH walls.

I have a positive vibe about this BH and offered her a JV proposal.

If she should accept my terms I will be most happy to look after the land around it.

Lets hope that she will consider my offer.

Location via googlemap

Nice view of the whole BH

Front view

Side view

Looks like there are owls 

Located on an agri land with lots of open areas.

Recently organised Swiftlet Farming Seminar on July 23rd 2016 !!!

(July 23rd 2016)

Managed to transfer a load of knowledge to 12 participants.

So thrill to see then absorbing those new things which they will not get from anywhere else.

Those things like how to use swiftlet likes and dislikes to bait them seems to be the most interesting.

What ever you do with your BH it must be first considered whether those birds love it or not.

If they love those 90* corners you should be very glad to provide them.

If you can you should think of how to increase the number of 90* corners like the installation of waste wood corners.

If they like to use those fake nests why don't you install as many as you can?

Something which these participants never thing or refuse to think forward.

After one full day session every one came to thank me for all the information gathered and I am sure they will be very successful with their current BH project.

One particular participant came from Mynmar.

I was informed that he is with the Mynmar department of veterinary.

He claimed to be an animal doctor.

With the knowledge gathered after my Seminar he will do his part to write various papers and books for Mynmar people to introduce the farming.

"Pak Harry don't worry you will be mentioned in all my papers and books" he said.

His main area of interest is to go deeper into the farming method.

Right now the number of BH in Mynmar is about 100 but most are not successful.

Once the knowledge from me is taken home I am sure most of those new BHs will be very successful.

I am very motivated with the way my student manage to gather knowledge and I am looking forward for my next Swiftlet Farming Seminar.

I think you should try to attend too.

Call me for a seat for the September 24th Seminar.

Just After Spraying The Mutiara Aroma !!!

Yesterday's video clip taken at Rantau BH.

Main reason why there were lots of birds have something to do with the spray of Mutiara Aroma.

I took the trouble to make a fresh mix and spray on the floor.

Immediately after the splash those birds loves the smell of it.

What I also observed was the wet floor system installed by the BH owner.

He installed 15 nozzles mist pump system and make the floor wet.

This might be another attractive reason.

The number of birds inside while spraying the aroma was reasonable.

Probably around 50 birds flying around above my head.

This BH is in an Ecopark with 26 other stand alone BHs.

The only way to be superior as compared to the rest is to be different.

I mooted the idea of installing a monkey house and the owner agreed to proceed.

The changed in its main entrance system make the BH stands above the rest.

Those birds love top entry more as compared to the original top entry system.

Will continue to monitor this BH and hopefully it will house at least a kilogram of raw nests.

Poor In Basic Understanding Of Swiftlet Behaviour !!!

I was at the 2nd BH in Labis Johor and this lady owner confirmed that they came and played around the entrance hole area and soon after will fly off.

Inside my head I know why but better to check if my prediction was correct.

Usually if a BH owner complain similar to this the answer lies on how she installed those external sound tweeters.

In this particular case she must have installed the external sound tweeters only at the main entrance hole and so where else.

I assured the owner that if she wanted to see those visitors enter deep inside she need to line up external sound tweeters from the first door and deep inside the nesting rooms too.

She begin to question how come other visitors never told her that?

She indicated that there were a number of Veterinary officials plus some so called sifu did came and never say a word.

My answer to her was that these people who visited you are dump and they never study the basic characteristics of Facifagus.

When a new couple came to your BH it is mainly due to your external sound.

They did not come because they like your BH.

If your external sound is only at the main entrance hole these wild birds will hang around your entrance areas and later will leave your BH without venture inside.

So with the right positioning of those external sound tweeters hew BH will be alright.

Beside those external sound tweeters I submitted to her about 20 pages reports that she need to read and perhaps carry out.

Hope to keep in touch with her until her BH is fully repaired.

If you wish to understand more Please come and attend my July 23rd Seminar at Eastin hotel Petaling Jaya.

Call me at 0177551318

The Truth Hurts !!!

I was invited to view a couple of BHs in Labis, Johor.

The first unit belongs to a teacher who have been diligently paying her monthly mortgage fee to the bank.

The moment I entered her BH I saw this accumulation of owl waste all over the main roving area.

The smell was so bad so much so I nearly wanted to vomit.

I have no choice but to tell her the truth.

The main reason why her BH is empty is those smell.

No matter how good is the external sound she played no swiftlet will enter her BH.

She need to clean up the floor and perhaps spray some aroma on the floor.\

The best are those bird shit fermented water.

However she have to capture or eliminate the source of those smell.

She need to capture and eliminate all those unwanted visitors first.

I brought two set of owl traps for her and told her where she should mount them.

Hopefully she follow my instruction and perhaps capture all the owls.

Fake Nests: How To Bring The Same Couple Back To The Same Spot

Those who have used fake nests to lure those young couple into their BH will have this peculiar problem.

The moment you remove the nest together with the fake nest the couple will never return to the same spot.

It is difficult to explain why.

But there must be a way to bring the same couple back to the exact spot.

I was having a cup of coffee with an old friend and he provided the best solution.

One day when he came into his BH to carry out the monthly harvesting operation he forgot to carry with him a screw driver.

His BH is with lots of nests erected on those styrofoam fake nests.

Nearly 60% of all the nests (about 1100 pieces) were on the fake nests.

With no screw driver he will remove those nests on the fake nest using his bare hand and a scrapper put leaved those screws on the nesting plank.

What he discovered was that the same couple returned to the exact same spot.

Prior to this he used screw driver to remove both screws and the fake nest and very rare where the couple will return.

His conclusion is that the screw act as the bait to attract them back to the same spot.

You have to try it out first before making any negative comments.

If it works like how he experience please share with me.

I for sure will recommend this technique to all my followers.

If you think that it will work please inform me at harryswiftlet@yahoo.com

What To Upgrade At Carey Island BH Number 1 ???

While preparing the list of items to installed inside Carey Island BH number 1, I verbally told the owner on what is lacking in his BH.

1) The BH floors are not properly wet.

What he needed are those mist pumping system that will continuously wet the BH floors using a timer.

Each floor should be provided with one set of mist pump with at least 15 mist nozzles.

The water supply plus pressure head must be adequate to activate the pumps.

Initially the mist must be activated about four times a day or every 6 hours with about 10-15 minutes of operation.

Every time the BH is inspected the caretaker should look at the condition of the floor if it is still too dry or too wet.

If it is still dry he need to increase the timing by increasing the number of tooth on those timers.

If it is too wet he need to reduce the timing for the pumps.

So this BH needed two sets of mist pump system.

2) The number of chicken coop humidifiers have to be increase to a minimum of four new one for each floor.

Every unit must be coupled to an auto activator called the Hygrostat.

This gadget will be able to detect the set humidity and activate the humidifier once it reaches a set value.

If the humidity is set at 85%RH it will activate the current flow at 82%RH and when the humidifiers starts to blow those water droplets the humidity will start to increase.

The gadget will stop the current flow to those humidifiers once it sense that the RH touches 88%RH.

The Hygrostat will help to maintain the BH humidity to be within 83%-88%RH.

Beside 8 units of humidifiers, 4 hugrostats is required to activate the humdifiers.

3) The external sound tweeters inside this BH need some kind of total installation.

The number of external sound at the main LMB, along the walls, doors and the nesting rooms need to be properly installed.

I did make an estimate of about 44 pieces of AG 35 tweeters.

To install them I need to bring along a total of 4 rolls of 100 meters copper cables.

4) The BH entrance area is in need of a hexagonal tweeter.

The best is to install the hexagonal tweeter at the wall just above the LMB hole.

This hexagonal cable need to be connected to those tweeters at the LMB hole.

So I need to add one hexagonal tweeter plus a bracket and a pole for this installation.

5) The VIP rooms walls need to be blackened.

Two pails of black odorless paint will be used to pain the walls black.

The walls shall be properly selected and curtain part of these walls need not be painted.

Beside 2 pails of black paint a roller brush and a pole is necessary.

6) The BH need some number of fake nests to be installed.

Main function of these fake nests is to help those young couples to quickly built their nests.

Most young couples takes a longer period of time to complete their nests.

If these fake nests are installed, maybe about 200 pieces and sprayed with SP aroma, those swiftlet will be crazy with this gadget.

I am very very sure that the number of new nests will jump immediately after the installation.

So I need to prepare 200 fake nests and 2 canisters of SP for this upgrading operation.

7) The use of plastic chain will be useful to minimize odd shape raw nests.

Currently I was told that the number of odd shape nests is closed to 90% while those that are full 180* is about 10%.

The time have come to reverse the percentage.

The best method is to harvest all those nests and install a plastic chain.

Those wild birds once they returned to start a new nest will move to the old site.

The plastic chains installed will make it very uncomfortable for them to build at the same spot.

So I need at least 100 pieces of ready made plastic chain tied to steel band.

Time To Start Removing Those Fake Nests !!!

Just received this picture from a BH owner whose BH is in Bukit Selambau Kedah.

I helped him to bring back those swiftlet back after being abandoned for almost a year.

What I asked him to do was to install as many fake nests as possible.  Once install spray them with SP pheromone.

He did just that and see now what is happening to those fake nests?

This special row with 10 fake nests are 90% tenanted.

The whole row being tenanted.

It is not surprising with the two (fake nests sprayed with SP) combination and the result is absolutely stunning.

If you look more carefully you should notice some of these beautiful ideas (all are mine) :

1) You asked the BH owner to remove all those corner covers.

So you dont see any corner covers however I asked the owner to insert a triangular fake nest at the base of the corner.

My main reason is to use these 90* corners as the birds traps.

They love 90* corners so I provide them with them.

Beside providing them with one, I will make them feel more comfortable to provide a bed (fake nest) to make them very happy to start making their nests.


2) One more very special idea that I have is how to install those internal sound tweeters.  Examine the picture above in more detail.  Zoom to those tweeters.

You will realized that they are installed very closed to the 90* corner joints.

About 2 inches away to the left and right of the 90* joints.

Again the reason is the same.

I want to bring those swiftlet closer to the 90* corners.

Once they are ready to mate they will start to search for the right location where to erect their first nest.  The best choice will be the 90* corners.

So I will precisely install all my internal sound tweeters closed to these corners.

3) What above installing those rectangular shape fake nest to the left or right of the internal sound tweeters?

In the beginning the first couple will occupy the 90* corner and when a new couple landed at the internal sound tweeter they will be drawn to the nearest fake nests either on the left or the right of the tweeter.

If you think that I am wrong please look at it again.

4) The nest very new gadget which I introduced to this BH owner are those plastic chains.

It is about 6 chains that is installed at those corners.

Main idea is to force those birds to move their nests onto the straight planks.

Do this after every harvest of those fake nests erected at those 90* corners.

He was stunned with what happened and keep telling me that it was a damp marvelous idea.

So now during his harvesting operation he will bring along a ready made plastic chains ready to fix.

If you need any advise with regards to your BH not doing well let me know.

You might want to attend my July 23rd 2016 seminar on swiftlet farming.

Another Interesting Event At Corey Island BH Number 1 !!!

(External Sound Tweeters at main LMB facing each other)

I was at this newly finished BH at Carey Island Klang Selangor.

The owner launched the completed BH but after launching it I was forced to take a look at his first BH about 1 km away from the second BH.

I was forced but I took the opportunity to perhaps see its progress.

I remembered twinkling with the BH sound system and at the same time changed the external and internal sounds.

That was 2 months ago.

While inside the BH I observed the followings:

1) The humidifiers were a bit not working that well.  The amount of mist was not full blown but little mist coming out of the head.

2) There were only two humidifiers on each floor (two floors only since the ground floor was used by his golf club caddies).  The floors were too dry.

3) The birds seems to be concentrating on the top floor.  If I am not wrong nearly 70 percent were staying on the top floor while the remaining were on the 1st floor.

4) The old bird shit were regularly removed and I think it would be better to keep them on the same floor.

5) The majority of the BH nests were found at those corners.  Since all the corners were filled with triagular wood corners the nests formed 135* nest shape.

6) There were a couple of walls (about 2) on each floor but were a bit without specific purposes.

7) The external sound seems to be concentrated only at the entrance areas and not extended into the nesting rooms.

8) The external sound tweeters at the main LMB was not facing out but facing each other in order to avoid being wet.

There were more but slip my mind.

After having a short visit I told the owner what can be done to make his BH more populated.

However while briefing the owner his worker came done to report on the number of nests inside the BH.

Roughly was something like these:

1)  The total number of nests went up to 161 nests.  It went up by 30 nests as compare to the previous month countered on June 3rd (131 nests).

2)  More interesting was when the owner started to ask how many nests was detected previously.  The caretaker reported that on May 3rd it went up by only 18 nests.  However the month of April, just after I twinkled with those sound system and changed both the external sounds, the nests jumped by 39 nests.

3)  So the total number of nests increased after my first visit was 39+18+30=87 nests.

4) In that case the number of nests after operating for almost 2.5 years prior to my visit was 161-87=74 nests.

Now wait a minute.

Just because I came plus play around the external and internal sounds the nests number jumped 117% within three months.

That is impossible I told the owner but it happened.

So now the owner knows my very persuasive ability.

"Pak Harry, can you recommend what else to do to double the nests number one more time?"

If I read his mind right is that he wanted to challenge me to double the nests one more time within three months.

Should I accept this challenge?

Of course I would love to.

Currently listing down the items that need to me installed.

Also will put in black and white why they are important to this BH with 161 nests.

Problem With Snake In Your BH!!!

Something very common that might be hanging somewhere in your BH.

If you happened to see an old snake skin in your BH, you can safely confirmed that there is at least one snake inside your BH.

They might be hiding somewhere on the roof or any small crevices or in between the walls.

What can you do to catch them.

I stumbled upon this particular idea posted on FB and I think you should consider this simple idea.

What you can do is to hard boil and egg and insert a fishing hook inside it.

Tie the hook to those fishing string and hang the egg above the floor.

The smell of boiled egg is very attractive to those snake.

If there is any snake inside your BH there is a strong chance that they will come down to eat your boiled egg.

Install on every floor and hopefully they will be taken.

Best of luck and if you happened to be successful let me know

Email any photo to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com