Kemaman BH: Ready To Rock And Roll !!!

 (The new look of Kemaman BH main entrance area.)

At last after 3 weeks of afraid of height the Kemaman BH was back into operation.

One of the frightening aspect of revamping this BH was its ceiling height.

The two floors BH was designed with about 16-18 feet ceiling height.

If you climb up with those 12 steps ladder you will have that feeling that you will tumble down.

The BH owner provided us with those building racks and it help in some way but still when you stand up on the make shift floor you so feel your knees shivering due to the height.

Luckily there was no mishap and all installation using the movable rack went well.

The following installations were made using the rack:

1) The nesting corners for cluster tweeters installation.

2) The more than 300 fake nests.

3) The 400 pieces of internal sound tweeters.

4) The chocolate tweeters, about 6 sets.

5) The crossed leg tweeters.

6) Super Pheromone sprays onto all those fake nests.

7) 7 rolls of cables connecting all those tweeters to the data room.

8) 16 pieces of waste wood corners.

9) 36 pieces of aluminum fake nests.

Other activities on the two floors were:

1) Cutting of extended roof.

2) Removal of old hexagonal tweeter and replaced with a new unit.

3) Intallation of 7 pieces of power tweeters for last tengo sound system.

4) The main entrance window were installed with wooden frame.

5) The perimeter of the main entrance hole was painted with special black paint.

6) The installation of tweeters on the wooden frame.

7) Painted several walls inside the roving area with black colored paint.

8) Activated insect generating set inside the roving room.

9) Erected a properly sized door connecting the roving room with the LAL area.

10) Erected another door connecting the LAL area with the top floor nesting room.

11) Erected another partition with wide door to darken the top floor nesting room.

12) On the ground floor a total of three partitions were erected to minimize the amount of light coming from the roving area.

13) The ventilation holes were all installed with 2.5 feet long PVC pipes.

14) The ground floor was provided with two wet floor system.

15) In addition to the wet floor I added two chicken coop humidifiers each operated by an auto humidity sensors.

16) The external sound playing amplifier was changed to Teknik GT 106.

17) We recycled the amplifiers for the two floors internal sounds.

18) The external sound used for this BH were the "Super Vac" and "Marvelous Cloud".

19) The internal sound deployed was the Super BabyKing and BabyKing.

20) The top floors walls inside the VIP room was heat shield using those bubble sheet system.

21) The Last Tango sound system was deployed.

22) The LAL hole area were installed with about 4 power tweeters.

23) The owner wanted the ventilation holes to be covered from the outside with a special plastic covers and we did them.

24) Water piping system for humidifiers and wet floor system was installed inside.

A masterpiece and I know those birds will fell in love with it.

Give the BH about 5-6 months and I can guarantee that the nests number will doubled, I told the owner.

He surveyed the BH before allowing us to go home.

His comment was something like this:

"Pak Harry thank you for all the good job done.  I would like the same installation be done in another BH in town and maybe after that inside another BH in Ulu Besut."

I think he loved what he saw and from the look of what were carried out the BH now is perfect and more like a BH.

Yesterday he watched the birds returning home and was cock sure that the number entered was more than before our revamp operation.

The number of bird shit spots on both floors seems to be much higher than before.

I advised him to hold on and give the BH at least 3-6 months to prove to him that all the monies he allocated was a good investment.

He will get what he aimed for and his BH will be the best in the Kemaman.

What Have You Done To The Sound System ????

 (A strange and expensive method to cool a BH)

Yesterday's article was about this BH in Maran with strange bright light door inside a VIP room.

Now let me talk about something which make the previous owner wonder what really happened with the same BH he gave its custodian to his son.

I was on my way back to Kuala Lumpur from Kemaman.

On the way home I wanted to pass my visit report to this new BH owner.

He waited for some long hours before I arrived but I did reached the final destination with him waiting with a big smile.

The first thing I did was to apologize for being a bit late. It was further than what I initially thought.

The first thing we did was to order some food for dinner.

He started to share something and I think this new twist of event is something good for him.

"Pak Harry yesterday my Dad stop by the BH and he noticed something usual.  There were many birds above the main entrance hole and he asked me what I did with it.  Did you change the sound? What did you do to get those unusual number of birds flying above the BH? he asked."

This must have been due to those tweaking that I did during my visit to the BH.

The key point here is that if you know how to optimize your amplifiers I am sure you will get some unusual results.

Many people tends to take things for granted and never bother to learn how to optimize their amplifiers.

I believed this is something that every BH owner must learn.

I told him what I actually did.

First the setting of the three knobs (bass, mid and treble) and the second were those optimizer buttons.

The final thing that I remember carrying out was to increase the sound volume just a bit.

This was not the first time that gave a similar result.

I remembered getting the same: "Hey what have you done with my sound system.  You know after your last visit there are more birds flying around my BH".

I might have some talent but I am sure if you learn it properly you will get this simple talent.

If you want to know more please call me at 017 7551318.

A Strange Door That Uluminate A Nesting Room !!!

  (A look from the inside.  Just imagine the brightness inside your VIP room?)

One new owner of a three stories BH in Maran, Pahang wanted my expert opinion about his newly erected BH.

Actually his BH was a gift by his dad.

He promised to turn around the poorly performing BH and what he did was to contact me for some sort of expert opinion.

I remembered him when he attended one of my Swiftlet Farming seminar conducted about 1 .5 years ago.

The BH was on a small hill inside a palm oil plantation.

The moment I entered the data room I could not resist the temptation to tweak those knobs on the two amplifiers.

While doing that I told him that by looking at the setting made by the "consultant" I know for sure he is not a good one.

The way he set did very little to optimize the sound produced.

The next step was to enter the ground floor.

"Oh my god.  You have too many partitioning and it will not serve the purpose to lure your tenants." I commented to him.

There were more surprises when you walk up the two stairs to the main entrance area.

The BH was with two entrance holes.  One was the side entry and the second was the top entry.

The side entry was dedicated for the top most floor while the top entry was for the middle and ground floor.

The most unusual thing that I saw in this BH was the bright light coming from a door that was used to shut the passage that connect the top floor with the top entrance roving area.

The "consultant" deployed a light penetrable door that were designed for toilets for low cost housing.

The whole VIP room areas were bright like the morning light.

"How can he be so stupid to use the cheap door with light coming out of the wall?" I shook my head.

This are the type of so called consultant flooding the market.

This is also why more and more BHs failed to draw birds into them.

The next big mistake was the location of LAL between the middle floor and the ground floor.

The "consultant" opted to use the staircases as the LAL and for this particular BH they were in a Zig-Zag orientation.

I told the new owner firmly that if he wanted to populate the ground floor he need to cut the cement floor area when most birds will fly about it.

That will be the area just below the first staircase and not the current second staircase.

After viewing the many mistakes and some stupid things I wrote to him a 15 pages report that tells him how to correct all of them.

I hope he spend some time to evaluate the report.

If he wanted my help I will be happy to take a 2 hours drive up to get everything in proper order.

What a strange incident !!!

 (The same door from the outside facing the roving area)

Decided to Graft The Kemaman Figs Trees !!!

After a number of time looking at those Kemaman Figs trees I finally decided to go ahead in grafting their branches.

The whole idea is to get the selected branches for rooting and once ready cut them for transfer.

I have tried using this technique and it works very well.

The only disadvantage is that you need to wait for at least 1.5 - 2 months before those roots are formed.

All you need are the followings:

1) A roll of aluminum foil (used to cook those fish).

2) A pack of mos like materials. (I got it this pack from a garden equipment selling shop).

3) A pail.

4) Water

5) A sharp knife.

6) Cable ties.

What you need to do is to get the mos materials wet.  Open its wrapper and put it into a pail.  Wet the mos for about 5 minutes.

Break the wet mos so that they are not in one clump.

As for the aluminum foil cut them into 10" X 1 foot.  Fold them into two.

Now get them to those selected trees.

Locate the most healthy branches and cut its skin about 1 inch long one round.

Once you have removed its skin you can now pick up a small amount of the wet mos and spread it on the foil.

Wrap the mos and the foil around the cut section.

Wrap it nicely and tie the two ends with cable tie.

Once that is done you need to wait for about 1-5-2 months to check if those roots are ready for transplant.

It will be good to cut the bottom part of the wrapped branch and transfer it to a pot.

Water it for a number of days.

You need to remove those leaves and if it was too long cut the branch to about 1.5 feet.

Once young shoots grew you can transfer onto the ground.

Have a nice figs replanting work.

 

It Should Be Back In Full Swing By Tuesday !!!

 (Temperature recorded at about 4:00pm today)

Yes just a few more days the Kemaman BH under revamp will be back in full steam.

The heat insulation materials were installed on the upper floor.

The temperature inside this VIP room seems to settle down to around 27*C-29*C.

A number of partitions were erected and now all the nesting rooms are dark and comfortable.

I am sure with the extended PVC pipes attached to the ventilation holes, the birds will feel safe and protected.

There are more internal sound tweeters and fake nests now.

It used be only a few but I have decided to increase their number more than 10 folds.

I have a very strong feeling that those birds will be very happy to tenant this BH.

This morning for example my workers complained that at about 9;00 am the house was full with about 1000 birds inside.

I wonder why they seems to be very persistent in entering the unfinished BH.

The monkey house area now are painted with black paint to reduce the reflected light.

While one worker was busy with the internal sound tweeters installation the other was fixing the water pipe for two humdifiers.

They guaranteed me that by Tuesday the BH will be ready to go.

The test so far seems to be very positive.

Every birds that flew above the BH roof will enter the main entrance hole.

They will have lots of things to see and admired.

Let us hope that all will decide to stay.

 (Cutting the roof to about 5")

 (Final touch on the last partition)

 (Installation of Cluster tweeters)

 (To reduce those light from ventilation hole elbow, installed about 2.5 feet pipe)

Kemaman: Why I Pushed For More Fake Nests

During my first visit to this BH in Kemaman I pointed something to the BH owner.

The first was where most of his BH nests were located.

Yes nearly all were either beside the internal sound tweeters or above it.

The second very interesting observation was the number of fake nests being tenanted.

He installed I think about 20 pieces and nearly 50% were taken.

My workers informed me a few days ago something like this.

"Pak Harry those fake nests that cannot been seen as being occupied are actually with eggs.  They are not actually empty but with eggs."

This pushed the number of fake nests occupied from 50% to 70-80%.

I was not surprised and it is my believed that this strange gadget is something that we must not take for granted.

We need to study their effectiveness and use it to our advantage.

Since the BH owner used this particular type I source for the same type and got about 300 pieces for him.

I can safely recommend to all those who are new and have difficulties to populate their BH to use the same type of fake nests.

Remember these fake nests are for us to lure those birds to lay their first eggs.

Once they lay their first egg they will be your permanent tenant.

You can later remove these fake nests and your tenant will return to your BH.

Just try to use as many as you can and make sure you install them precisely where they would love to stay.  Yes beside those internal sound playing tweeters.

Kemaman BH Lunch Break Surprise !!!

This video clip was taken just after our short lunch break.





 Since we stop working inside we make a decision to allow those parent to bring home food for their babies.

We never knew or expect others to join the fun.

More than 200 birds were inside the BH within 30 minutes.

When we entered the BH we have no choices but to get those birds out of the BH first.

A good sign and I am sure this BH will be a nice place to be populated.

The top floor now recorded almost 29*C or below all the time.

A VIP room was erected and those corners covers were ready to receive those tweeters.

The fake nests were also installed as many as we can.

There were about 16 waste wood corners.

The VIP room darkness was superb with those 2.5 feet PVC pipe extension.

The doors leading from the monkey house to the VIP room are smaller in size.  The amount of light allowed to enter the VIP room were greatly reduced.

I have arrange for a 7 liter black paint to be applied on selected walls that were reflecting those light from the main entrance hole.

Great stuff and I am looking forward to put this BH into operation mode.

Getting 200 nests will be a small problem.  I was looking at 700 nests within 12 months.

The Progress Of Kemaman BH Revamp Operation !!!

So far so good and the birds were cuing up to be it's tenants.

That was from my observation and a few test run when I was at site.

Yesterday for example I have to teach my workers on the proper way to get those birds flying inside to find their ways out.

You see we were having lunch and my worker decided to switch the external sound (a new sound) just to inform those birds that they can enter to perhaps feed their young one.

However after less than 45 minutes they were camping inside.

We wanted to start work and stop the sound however they refuse to leave the rooms.

Top floor was with about 100-150 and similar number on the ground floor.

"Pak Harry how are we going to start work when there are so many of them inside?" he asked.

What I did was to show them the simple way to push them out.

First stop both the external and internal sound.

Next was to take one of the portable neon light out of the room towards the entrance hole area.

Then you switch off the light in the nesting room where they wanted to start work.

Yes within less than 2 minutes they flew out following the light coming in via the door.

This special occasion tells us that these birds use those light to find their way out.

Every morning when the sun in up the light coming in will help to guide your birds out of your BH to find food.

This is also why I recommend that for a good BH try to have the main entrance hole to face the EAST and not the west.

The east means direct east or South east or North east.

I am happy to share these few pictures on the progress so far.

1) We have completed the installation of heat shield for the top floor.  The temperature now is below 29*C.  Perfect and I am sure those birds will love this BH.

2) The three doors  on the 2nd floor areas were officially completed.  I managed to reduce their sizes to minimize the amount of light coming inside polluting the nesting room.

3) The air ventilation holes are now with 2.5 feet 4" diameter PVC pipes.  The light emitted by these holes are not down to them minimum.

4) The corner covers in the form of clusters were installed and now waiting for the installation of internal sound tweeters.  I am back in KL to fetch the items.

5) I have instructed my worker to come out with a number of waste wood corners and they installed as per my requirements.

6) The fake nests will be one of the most important gadget to trap all these new visitors.  I have decided to increase the total number of fake nests to about 250 for the top floor alone.

The BH owner dropped by and was pleased to see the progress so far.

He was very surprised on what we have carried out and keep reminding me that he has a few more sick BHs that he wanted my personal touches.

I hope he understood my position.  There are so many people in his position and they also need my help.

Enjoy these pictures and hope I can post more soon..

You can drop by the view these special features.  Call me at 017 7551318.

Another New Figs Tree Specie !!!

Recently discovered a new Figs tree specie planted around a BH in Kemaman.

The owner claimed that the trees grew naturally and he was fortunate that the trees were not taken down by his construction workers.

There were at least 15 trees and I think this specie was new to me.

The fruits seems to be slightly smaller and they seems to be attached to both the main trunk and branches.

The fruits when ripe will turned yellow.

I have the opportunity to plug a number of it and squeezed to check the figs warps inside.

Yes the young warps were plenty growing inside.

The best was how the BH owner knew about the important about Figs.

"Actually I came to know about it by reading your blog." his story on how he got to know the Figs trees.

I am thinking about grafting the tree and maybe transfer a few to Dengkil Selangor.

Have a look at the pictures taken during my recent trip.

How Nice To Capture Those Revamp Works Into Vedio Clips !!!

Something came to my head about getting those revamp works documented in a professional manner.

What I have in mind was to put them into special tape and distribute them to any newbies who wanted to improve their BHs.

So I called my old friend from NTV7 to have a few ideas on the matter.

We met somewhere in Petaling Jaya and took some time to figure them out.

The main obstacle will be its cost.

One 15 minutes clip will cost something in the region of RM12,000.

The cost will be about RM4000 for photo crew and RM8000 for editing plus sound background.

I got to admit that the cost is way too high and not in my budget.

I was looking at making about 5 clips and this will be RM60,000.

There goes my Hilux 4x4 pick up truck (second hand).

I think the only way out is to get a third party to sponsor the clips making.

The best would be the TV producers or MOA or grant from a local University or some individual who sees the benefits of this project.

After the meeting he promised to discuss the matter with this immediate Boss and will come back if the idea of getting NTV7 to sponsor is positive or rejected.

Well in the mean time I need to draw out some kind of plan to choose a number of BHs that is doing well after the revamp operations.

One video clip, I was thinking, was more towards the Trans-location project.

We are currently incubating about 388 eggs now and about 55 were recently hatched.

The release date will come after 43rd days after hatching.

It will be very nice if all these baby chicks are attached with those RFID tags and the BH where they will be released is fixed with an antenna to detect their return once released.

This is something special and I will be very glad to have you out there to give some help.

I might want to focus on this Trans-location project as my number one priority.

The rest will be in stages.

Please call me at 017 7551318 if you happened to have the soft spot on this project financing.

More Eggs Are Hatching !!!

 (Baby birds transferred into fake nests with a cloth layer)

Those 388 eggs collected at Gambang recently have produced about 55 new babies so far. 

The rest are still inside the special incubator waiting for their turn.

I got a number of pictures from the caretaker.

The last time I called, he was busy feeding those young chicks.

"Pak Harry sorry I am now feeding those babies.  Will whatsup some pictures to you soonest"

The pictures provided are as follow: