If Your Birdhouse Faces Stagnant Growth, What Should You Do ???

Something that no one will be able to answer but I have something that might be of special interest.

I was with a new friend from Ayer Tawar Perak on Thursday July 16th,2009.

This person was very kind to share something that I am very sure will help those who faces with stagnant number of nests in their BH.

"Harry, I have a BH in Ayer Tawar, perak with about 300 nests. At that time the number of nests were not growing very well. Since my BH was pretty new, most of these 300 nests were corner nests."

"One day I decided to install those steel corner covers to all the BH nesting plank corners. What I did was to harvest all the nest, with or without tenant (babies or eggs) inside. I thought this was okay."

"What surprises me was after the nest clearing and corner covers installations, the nest number grew by almost 30%. I believed the cause of the increases were what I did to the nests with those babies and eggs."

"This is similar to what happen when your BH is being burglarised. You automatically gain a good percentage of new nests. But I believed you should not allow your BH to be burglarised too often."

The gist of this conversation is that if you have problem with stagnant growth, the best thing that you should do is to harvest those nests with or without the tenant.

I am sure you will not be happy with the suggestion but nothing to loose for just one time and see what happen.

Remember do not do that too often. Yes you should only do that if your BH faces stagnant growth for many months.

I hope this beautiful idea will not be taken as a negative point of view.

Unless you have a much better suggestion, please let me and the rest of those who wanted to know how to reactivate, it is better not to make any silly comments.

A New BH In Rawang, Selangor !!!

Two weeks ago I help a friend in Juru, Seberang Prai to launch his new BH.

After more then three weeks I finally managed to be at site to set the sound in operation. Before doing that he got his workers to clean the floor and ensure not a speck of dust on those floors.

The owner cleaned the nesting planks himself and waited for me to drive up to put his new BH in operation.

Last weekend launched a new BH in Sungai Rambai, Melaka. This new BH was a stand alone three stories high and the owner took about 5 months to get it up.

He was lucky that he found me via my blog. If not the whole project must have been put on hold.

I did the necessary and got everything in place. Apply the new BH aroma, the passionate and played my GoldPot external sound combined with the famous Black Cloud.


This weekend I have a special date with a newbie name Steve from Kuantan Pahang. A very young man who was given the task by his father to look after a 1.5 years old BH plus a new unit under construction.



"Pak Harry, I need to learn as much as I can from you. I am hopeful that the new unit, a standalone will perform better as compared to the other shop house unit."

I was in Kuantan about 10 days ago. Inspected the low nests density BH and make some serious recommendations.

I told Steve to follow my recommendations and call me back when it is ready.

Yes he called for me to be up there this Friday July 17th, 2009.

I am hopeful that all those list of things to do were done as per my recommendations.

This Friday will put the revamp BH into operation mode.

Well well well .....

I forgot to mention about the Rawang new BH in the making. My Brother who suddenly fell in love with swiftlet farming have gone ahead to convert a shop house too.

He got the owner to agree for a long term lease at a very reasonable price. I have good look at the place and I told him to go ahead. Main reason being there were lots of birds flying above the roof top both in the evening and morning.

The location was in between a few successful BHs.

He just finished talking on the phone. The converted unit is also ready for launching this weekend.



A busy months. It looks like every week there will be a new BH taken into operation gear.

I am glad with the development.

All these new BHs will become my center for my R&D on new products, sounds and aromas.

If they are are proven then the benefits will be my blog readers ......

When To Paint Your House Black, Internally !!!!

You might be one of those who take things for granted.

Yes leave everything to the contractor to do what he like with at least RM250,000 to RM500,000 of your live saving.

My advise: Sometime it is advisable to sit with your faithful contractor and exchange some ideas or what additonal things that will be good for your BH.

Remember this is going to be your BH and not his.

You need to give some inputs on those things that will make your BH more enticing to those wild "walet" before the house is ready.

Once the BH is ready you have very little choices but to accept everything that the contractor did for you.

Good example the room must be very dark.

The nesting planks are well mounted, no gap and the box must be around 30cm by 100 cm minimum.

The corner covers are covered in the middle and not at the sides close to those partitioning.

There are some fake nests being installed on the plank close to those tweeters and corners.

The number of tweeters must be adequate and properly mounted.

The guards to the LAL must be high enought.

The pool must be water proof.

The wiring must be split into various floor and labelled.

There will be a separate wiring for external sound at the back of the house.

The partitioning must be at the right place and the right size.

The house humidity and temperature must be monitored for at least a few days to check on the house microhabitat.

The water piping and electrical points are well located.

If you let the contractor to do everything with no input from you then you will later regret for not doing so.

Even if you are not sure what to talk with the contractor, you should call a friend of someone that you know that he is good, like Pak Harry, to drop by for his comments.

He might gives you some bullets to talk or instruct your contractors to add some of those important things.

I was at one of the new BH some time back.

The house was not 100% ready and about to install those nesting planks.

What I saw was something interesting.

The contractor got his laborers to paint the floor totally black.

Normally people paint after the installations of those planks but this contractor paint before he install those nesting planks.

His reason being, when he paint them black, he usually paint everything inclusive of the wall, ceiling, pillars and beams.

If the painting is done after the nesting planks installation, the paint might smear onto the wood.

I think this guy got a very strong point. If your Red Meranti wood is smeared with black paint it might not be very attractive to those "Walet".

I thank him for a simple yet very effective steps in making your BH dark and yet will make the nesting planks clean.

Follow his step and I am sure you will benefit from "Smearing of nesting planks syndrome".

Pak Harry Now Is Recognised By Time Magazine !!!

Little did I know that my contribution on the net was recognized by The Time Magazine.

I received a friendly call from someone who introduced himself as Andrew Marshall. He told me that he is a correspondence for Time Magazine and would like to write an article on Swiftlet Farming in Asia.

In the beginning I thought he wanted to pull my leg but I went along providing him with some write ups on things that he requested.

One day he called and wanted to have a good chat before finalising his article.

Well as usual I answered all that he asked for.

Two days later he wrote something simple like this:


Harry,

Here it is:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1909458,00.html

Many thanks again.

Andrew

I took it lightly and very little notice on the matter until I received a comment from a blog reader who wanted me to launch his BH in Bentong, Pahang.

Read this:

Harry,

Your noble work has gain International recognition though TIME magazine. Enclosed pdf.

Btw, when are you in Bentong? me BH is 95% complete and now pending installation of a couple electrical, humidifiers, exhausts and it is good to go.

Will be in Bentong on Thu and hopefully it all can be switched on and locked up....

Let me know when u r up to Raub/ Bentong next hence we can have a walkabout at the BH and perhaps gain some useful pointers from you.

Stay well

I told my son and wife about this new twist of even and both of them were glad with such a recognition.

Well to me I did not asked to be recognized but if I do then that will be sweet.

My objective is still the same. I wanted to do my utmost best in helping to reduce those failure rate (60-80%) in swiftlet farming. They are just to high.

I need to give more time in investigating things that used to be very secret and confidential.

I want to make sure that everything that can help those newbiews to know in depth in this field is exposed and opened for discussion.

This business is not difficult to do but due to lack of information we see more and more people are loosing their life saving.

I am here to contribute and I hope my little investigations plus daring reports are taken with positive attitudes.

There are many more things out there and they need to be investigated. I need to get as many as I can and write about them in this special blogspot.

Y a a a h o o o o, I am inside the Time with Micheal Jackson (MJ) on the front page. A historical landmark and I am very glad on this new milestone......

Oops he (MJ) just died. May he be in heaven entertaining those who miss his songs so much. .......

New BH In Sungai Rambai !!!!

I was invited to launch a newly build BH in Sungai Rambai during the weekend.

The owner took about 6 months to finish the three stories building and it was erected on an piece of agriculture land at the back of the owner's home.

The dimension was about 20 feet width with 65 feet in length. Each floor was about 12 feet high.

I was called in somewhere in the middle of the constructions operation and the owner was very glad that he found me. His "consultant" ran away with the initial payment and left the project hanging.

He found my blog and was very brave to call and meet up in Kuala Lumpur.

I gave him my point of views on many wrong things that I saw during the first visit.

I got him to use the top entry entrance hole system.

Got him to use the hexagonal tweeter tower.



Recommended the installation of roof covers to avoid direct sunlight.



Most of those gaps between the nesting planks and the ceiling were sealed with wood.



The fungus that were found on the nesting planks were removed.

Safety barriers protecting the LALs were installed using steel pipes.



Those ventilation holes uses long PVC pipes to divert the air intake to the floor.



Assembled all those items that he needed to complete the new BH.

Got all the items installed as per a good birdhouse construction practises.

Inspect the installation works on a regular basis and last weekend the house was put into operational mode.

He was relieved to reach the final stage and I felt the same.

At last his first and long dreamed BH was on track. It was nearly abandoned.

Before starting the bird call sounds, I help plus show the caretaker on how to apply those new BH aroma and the passionate. Those fresh bird shits were also place inside the house at the back of the nesting room.

I told the owner to check the house on a regular basis for the first few days to ensure those water pipes are not leaking and the sound are played at the right volume.

I will be calling the caretaker on a regular basis to check the BH status....

He is now a better person as compared to before the BH was ready.

He make a number of mistakes and using the wrong person to built the BH was the biggest.

He ordered too much of the nesting planks and now keeping them for his next project.

The best was to have meet Pak Harry.

"It was arranged by Allah and if not I will not be meeting you Pak Harry."

I told him that I am glad to be involved and let us works toward getting the birds inside and build their nests.......













PS: The caretaker told me that on the morning of July 14th,2009, there were at least 8-10 birds entered the BH. How wonderful.....

Birdhouse In A 40 Footer Cabin !!!

Every time I meet a new friend who got themselves involved in swiftlet farming I tend to ask:

"How do you get into this crazy business of swiftlet farming?"

You will be surprised if you collect all their answers. Some were by pure accident, some when their father build one and failed, and some stumbled on my blog.

This new guy's story is interesting.

"Harry I never believed in swiftlet farming and I always told myself that those who got involved in swiftlet farming are a bunch of idiots".

"One day I came across a closed friend who was operating his swiftlet farming secretly, in his agricultural land. This guy operate his BH using a fourty footer container. I was dead sure that he was pulling my legs. One day I went to see myself and checked what my friend was talking about. When I entered the cabin, the roof was fully occupied. Oh my god, unbelievable.

He confessed to me that he was harvesting about rm 1,700 of nests a month for almost 2 years then. You know what? He just called me and told me that he has constructed a BH beside the cabin".

"From that day I never look back. I become very crazy on swiflet farming and each unit that I owned is about RM650,000 excluding the land and piling works."

I plan to own or co-own nothing less then 8 units. Currently have two and my next unit shall be in Minado, Indonesia.

So next time when you meet anybody crazy about swiftlet farming just ask him how he got into it in the first place ........

Dual Entry Holes BH Concept !!!!

I was never given a chance to visit any BH using dual entrance holes before.

The recent visit to Pekan Nenas, Johore makes me a new person. It changes my mind set and the way of answering any questions related to the type of entrance holes that I will recommend.

"Pak Harry, which entrance hole is better. The top entry or dog kennel type?"

My usual answer used to be:

When you build a new BH you will greatly dependent on those young birds generated by your neighbors or those successful BHs around you. Go and check their entrance types and use the same type.

What if there are both types in your area?

If you choose the top entry then you will not be able to harvest those youngsters from the dog kennel or side entry type of house.

Likewise if you choose the side entry, you will also loose those that prefer top entry.

The only way out is to have both types in your design. No big deal about loosing additional ceiling spaces because you can now have a 100% chances as compared to only 50%.

I was in Kota Bahru during one of my trip. One of the most successful BH I saw belongs to John Chen. I am cock sure the unit I saw was with dual entrance holes.



This might be one of those confidential design systems which John must have adopted.

In Setiawan,Perak, I saw the same phenomena. One of John Chen's BH seem to ooze those birds from the top and not the side entry like before.

I was wondering why? Now I think I got the answer.

I am excited over this new finding and I hope it will helps to reduce our swiftlet's BHs failure rates in Malaysia.

Those who wanted to know more please call me for further elaboration.

How To Choose The Type Of Corner Covers !!!

Been flooded with question about how to choose the right type of corner covers.

When I was in Pekan Nenas, inside a new BH with the owner, the same question was posted to me.

I think before we discuss about corner covers we should ask ourself why people use corner covers?

Let me relate a true story happened about three months ago:

I have one very bad experience selling raw nests to a processing center.

I took with me about two kilograms of raw nests to this processing center and the owner happened to be my good friend. I asked him to evaluate how much he was prepared to purchase all of them.

What he did was simple.

First he weight the total quantity of nest in the plastic bag. He then poured all of them on a clean piece of plastic mat.

Okay he said. I am going to segregate the nests based on their shapes.

He segregated the consignment into four: those with 180* shape,130* & odd (according to him), 90* and broken nests.

What's next?

He then weight each of them separately. Once he got the weights he will calculate the cost based on the four shapes.

At that time, the prices, based on shapes,were 180* was RM3,800, the 130*& odd was RM,3,200, the 90* was RM3,000 and the broken nests were at RM2,800.

Which mean to say if my consignment was all with 180* shape I will get almost 700 riggit higher then those odd shapes nests (roughly).

Which mean if I wanted to make more money I have to minimise all the other shapes except 180*. I need to avoid nest being easily broken too.

So which will type of all those corner covers will help me to minimise the odd shapes except the 180*?

Is it the excess nesting planks cut into a rectangular shape?

It is the one made of wood that fits nicely into the 90* corner or how about those steel plates?

I am sure you are smart enough to choose the right type if you look at these photos.

Choose the one that will result in the least percentages of broken and odd shape nests.

Remember if the corner covers you choose gave use the odd shapes you will continue producing the odd shape every harvest or perhaps forever. Just calculate the looses incurred just for being so unintelligent.

The lesser the odd shape nests the higher will be the value of nests you produce from your BH.

For me I will go with the steel plate type but my friend you must install them correctly. Look at the two pictures below and ask yourself if you harvest those nests will they be 180* shape?

Drove All The Way To Nenas, Johor To View A New BH !!!

This morning decided to make a trip to view a newly constructed BH in Pekan Nenas, Johor.

The owner is a group of Singaporeans who engaged a local contractor who specialises in building BHs using his latest techniques in accelerating the building constructions.

One of the owner happened to be my blog reader and he wanted my opinion on the building design.

The building looks nothing extravagant from the outside but the moment I entered the house, I was amazed with the ingenuity of the contractor.

He did something that I have seen before.

He put in both the top entry and dog kennel into one house. Very smart,impressive and genius. Unbelievable I thought to my self.

The two methods were constructed side by side but he focused the LAL construction more towards the dog kennel entrance hole.

Very very impressive and his design makes a lot of senses.

If you choose one entry type, you might not be able to attract the other group of young birds that are familiar with the one type.

To meet their preferred entrance holes you build both. Let them choose which entrance hole they love to enter.

I was very lucky to have met the contractor. I asked his reasons why he put the two together.

His answers were:

1) I have constructed many BHs Harry. Some dog kennels and some top entries. There is nothing to compare with this new design. One similar unit in Desaru brought in 800nests in less then 14 months. Frankly I hit a jackpot.

2) From my personal observation those young birds prefer the dog kennel entrance but once they settled down and become a parent they prefer the top entry. The top entry allows them to enter the BH at higher speed.

3) This combined design seem be able to populate all the floors. Before this only the top and second floors of a three stories building are populated. They tend not to populate the lowest floor which is cooler and damp. This new design encouraged those birds to populate the whole house especially the lowest floor.

4) I choose this design based on experiences. This is my best design ever. The most important in how many birds enter and not how beautiful the BH is.

I am very honored to be allowed to enter and I feel that this dual entrances concept is something that we need to push to all new BH builders/owners.

The design should be given a 6 stars.......

How To Avoid Noise During Swiftlet Returning Hours !!!

I saw this simple but effective method in preventing the humidifiers from operating from 6.00pm till 9.00pm (quite time hours).

You must remember this will be the time those birds starts to return home to roost.

What the owner did was to place a digital timer onto the three ways plug on the Hygrostat and then connect it to two of his BH humidifiers (two cables).

The digital timer was set not to block the supply of electrical current from 6.00pm till 9.00pm.

In this way, if the house humidity falls below the lower limit set by the owner, say 80%RH, both humidifiers will not operate.

By adopting this simple arrangement the two humidifiers will not operate and thus there will be no noise disturbances within the quite time.

Once the birds were already in the house and the outside lights were dark, for this case at 9.00pm, the system will operate to push the humidity to the required level.

After 9.00pm even the noise were there the birds will not dare to leave the house anymore. This is because the darkness outside will force the birds to stay in the house.

A marvellous idea which you might want to follow.

There is nothing like sharing.

Air Cooler Unit At A Seafood Resturant In Kuantan, Pahang !!!

While having seafood lunch in Kuantan, Pahang I was seated beside this huge air cooler.

At first it does not bother me very much.

After feeling the coolness from the air that were blowing to our table I just could not resist to have a closer look.

Hmm....may be this can help those BH with high internal temperature???

I thought to myself but I am not very happy with the sound that it generated.

The other problem is the water to top up the water in the main reservoir. If you use in a place that you enter once every month you need to modify the water supply to it.

Perhaps the fan speed should be run at the lowest speed facing the wall.

By this method the sound will be at its minimum.

Well no harm in trying something new but be careful to place the unit away from those bird nest areas. Those shits might be all over the cooler unit.

Enjoy the picture taken......

Juru New BH: Two Days They Have Stayed In !!!

Last week I was surmon to launch a new BH in Juru Seberang Prai.

I remembered helping the owner to deliver all his BH sound equipment.

He took more then three weeks to complete the convertion plus fixing the sound system.

The moment he finished he call asking me to be up there to activate the system.

Well since I promised to help I came up in the morning and arrived in Juru at about noon from Kuala Lumpur.

I brought a few more items that he wanted and once fixed I activated the BH.

For the sake of testing I deployed the Tongkat Ali external sound.

Applied one bottle of"New BH" aroma and "the passionate".

I tweak the sound and blast the sound a bit louder.

I stayed with the owner for almost two hours observing the reaction of those wild birds. Many came and many also left.

The owner was satisfied and I left the house to SPatani.

Two days after opening I received a call from the owner.

"Harry, just wanted to inform you that the Juru BH is okay. I entered to check on the humidity and temperature. Everything were within the required range. One good news for you is that there are a few markings on a few tweeters. The one at the entrance window and the one at the door."

He sound very happy and who will not if just two days after launching those birds have started to occupy a new BH????

I am happy for him and I promise to check with him on a regular basis.

Sibu Brothers Came To Town !!!

Last week the "Sibu Brothers" from Sarawak came to town. Among so many who wrote about swiftlet farming on the net they choose me. Why !!!. I need to ask them.

The four consisted of a would be retiree plus his brother (a contractor) and their close friends (both having their own busineses). I have never met any of them in person prior to this.

Their main objective was to build one BH each on four pieces of agricultural land located in Mukah, Sarawak.

They just wanted to minimise their risk of making blunders and wanted a person to guide them.

Among the many people available in Malaysia they choose Pak Harry. I wanted to know from the organiser, why me?.

"Pak Harry, among so many blog writer I think you are completely different. You are the best since you adopt the sharing attitude. You are willing to give more then what we deserved."

I picked them up at KL Sentral at about 8:30 am and I let them enjoy the bird call test in operation at Rawang Country Home.

This seem to be their first time doing a bird call test using "Duress". I told them that this is the best method to check for swiftlets.

"Wow Pak Harry this is interesting and we have never seen this new technique. Within a few short minutes those birds were drawn towards us. Magnificent way of making sure that there are birds. Thank you for showing us."

We then proceeded to Batang Berjuntai, Selangor. We stop by at my favourite location where there were six to 10 BHs and lots of swiftlet flying in and out of those entrance holes. Very fascinating and they give lots of attention on the shape of the entrance holes and where those tweeters were located.

We then moved towards Sungai Rambai Yu He Swiftlet City located about 5 kilometers away towards Kuala Selangor. This will be their first visit where they can enter a BH and have a good look on the internal built up of a successful BH. Key areas of interest were the nesting planks orientation, those corners, the staircase and the LAL, the position of those supporting beams and etc.

"Very interesting Pak Harry. This is better then attending a talk or a seminar. You are actually teaching plus practical into one."

Well after the swiftlet city I quickly pushed towards Sekinchan stand alone BHs located on those padi fields. There were many with different designs especially their entrance holes.

"Pak Harry, how come each BH have their own entrance design?"

Well each building have their own contractor who happened to be the "Consultant". Each have their own way of attracting those wild birds.

By late noon we were in Sabak Bernam for late lunch.

After finishing the lunch I took them straight to Setiawan, Perak. This will be the real action.

The moment we reached Kg Koh I swerve my car to a popular junction to take a peep at the most successful BH in Malaysia. I told them that the monthly output of this house, I was told, was nothing less then 100Kg. Wow that was fantastic.

We went to check ourself in a small hotel and rest for about 10 minutes.

"Well what's next Pak Harry?"

We are going to enter a BH full of nests. How about that?

All the four could not wait a minute longer. We went straight to the BH belonging to my good friend who volunteer to open his BH doors.

Upon reaching the owner greet us happily and have a long chat with all the four. He was using my "Black Cloud" external sound at that time. The weather was marvellous and cool. There were lots of birds in the air above his BH and his neighbors. Many dive in and out of the intended BH.

We entered and the internal view of this BH was mesmerising. Lots of birds in the rooms and many were in their nests. Some might be babies but many keep flying in and out. The roving area was in the middle of two nesting floors.

We stayed inside for almost 20 minutes. Visited two floors and the Sibu brothers were so fascinated and wanted see more.

While they were engrossed with the owner I took the opportunity to snap pictures for my blog. I observed those corner covers, the anchor hangers, the nests positioning on the corner covers, the most preferred nesting areas and so on.

After more then 20 minutes the four came out and told me that the view was fantastic and thank me for arranging with the owner. It is not easy to have this kind of opportunity in getting the permission of any BH owners to enter their successful BH.

"Thank you and thank you Pak Harry"

We than was taken to another BH, a new but not in operation, by the same person.

"Pak Harry what's next?"

Well let us visit an electrical shop at Sri Manjung who supply interesting gadgets for BHs.

I gave them a break so that they can see something that this shop owner have to offer. The "PVC" pipe Bazooka. We tested the item and it was very interesting.

After the short break, we moved to John Chen's BH about a few blocks away. The view was refreshing. They were curious about the open roof entrance system.

We also managed to visit meet a popular BH owner who operated a optical shop in Setiawan town. He happened to be the President of BH owners association in Perak.

Then I make sure the brothers enjoy the evening view of birds coming home to roost.

The next day I told them to be up as early as 6:30am. I took them to have a look at the morning view at Kg Koh BH. The birds just beginning to ooz out when we arrived. They were glued to the floor viewing those magnificent event of birds coming out of the entrance hole.

"Very very interesting and unbelievable. They keep flying out for more then 2 hours Pak Harry. Maybe we should have something to fill our stomach."

After 9.00am we proceeded to Ayer Tawar, Perak to take a closer look at a BH which was under my care. I told them that I need to do some maintenance and the owner wanted to check the BH for any new birds marking inside.

They do their investigating while I was busy checking any signs of those birds. Yes there were a few new markings.

I took them back to KL and stop for lunch at Bidor and tea at Tanjung Malim.

Overall the trip was very successful and the four were thankful for all the efforts.

I wish them the very best and with high hope they will invite me to come over to Mukah to launch their new BHs.

If you wish to do the same please email your interest to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com.
You need at least two days for the tour.

Cost is marginal but the benefits are tremendous. You learned while you visit real BHs.