After Three Years Into Operation You Better Watch Out !!!

This article is about your BH performance after three years into operations.

Okay let's assume that you have activated your BH for almost one year and the number of birds entering it is good and fined.

You wish that the growth will continue forever until your BH is full to the brim.  Every square inch of those nesting planks were with nests.

There is nothing to worry and you will be complacent (give little attention) and forgot about your responsibilities.

From my personal observations and the many visits into so many BH I think there is a very strange occurrence on the third year onwards.

Once your BH reaches three years or more you will find that the nests growth is no longer like the first three years.

They are either very slow or stagnant.

Let me ask you why suddenly your BH become like dead?

"Pak Harry it was doing fine for the first three years and now dead.  The nest numbers seems to be not moving forward  and I don't understand why those baby birds that were generated refuse to stay."

Just imagine your BH is with say 500 nests at that particular stage.

Every four months, on the average  there will be 1000 (2 young chicks X 500 nests) young birds.

One year there will be 3000 young birds and not a single bird came back home to stay with their parent.

What do you think these 3000 young birds that were hatched and raise inside your BH refuse to return back?

Where is this embedded GPS location thing that those people said about swiftlet? How come they refuse to come home?

(It seems that Jabatan Hidupan Liar of Sabah claimed that when they carry out the so called "Translocation" techniques young swiftlet will return to the BH where they were released).

My answer to you is to analyse what can go wrong inside or outside your BH after 3 years and you never take any effort to look after your BH.

During a number of visits to BHs with this syndrome I found the following to be very true:

1) The BH after exposing to the hot sun got to a stage where the water inside the cement walls dried up.  The BH condition is more like a tree with dried leaf where the water in the trunk were sap dry due to the hot sun. The cement dryness will eventually allows the heat to travel faster from the external walls to the internal wall's surface.

2) Most of the time all those water humidifiers are dead.  The owner tend to ignore the important of replacing or repair all their old gadgets. The BH become so dry and hot. Most of these humidifiers have some kind of shelf life.  Once they reach their shelf life they will be dead automatically.  So you need to be more prepared to replace them.

3) The BH are full of predators usually cockroaches, ants, lizards, rats, beetles and perhaps geckos.  You need to take some time to spray your BH with Fendona or any other suitable insecticides.

4) Most of those external and internal sound tweeters are dead and you know pretty well that when any of those internal sound tweeters are dead the birds tends to move to the other operating one.  If all are dead you can guess what will be their best option, run away to your neighbour's BH.

5) The amplifiers are half operating.  On many cases those amplifiers are half in operation and half are totally dead.  Can you blame those birds?

6) The sound seems to be the same old sounds that were no longer attractive.

7) There was this BH where the owner clean every single bird shit on the floor. Those young birds are very sensitive to their shit being removed.  My advise to this BH owner is to store them inside some kind of buckets on the same floor and the same location when those shits were removed.

8) The BH was too bright and those areas which those birds likes to stay are totally taken up.  The BH owner did not realized the important of darkness in his BH.  Once those safe spots are taken up the young one will not be attracted to come back and stay with their parent.

9) Many of those ventilation holes were broken or those wire mesh corroded and allows those wild birds to start making their nests inside these holes.  Once the majority were filled with those straws or leaves they air flow to air the BH are blocked. With little air flowing in to replenish the oxygen percentage those young birds feel choked. You need to remove these birds and allow more air to enter your BH.

10) The floor are too dry.  My advise is to spray water (not too much) on the walls and the floors (not those planks please) every time you visit your BH. You will be surprised that after you sprayed and moved up to another floor and when you return all those water were gone !!!

My key point here is to make you realise or alert you that be careful when your BH is reaching 3 years old.

The moment they become one you will be facing these common issues that if you ignore them it will make your young birds refuse to return home.

If you think that I am bluffing try to ask your friend who owned BHs which are 3 years old or above.

Be prepared and never let the nests population growth become stagnant.

I remembered visiting at least three BH with the same occurrences and after putting forward my recommendations these BHs came back alive.

One was in Ayer Tawar, Perak, Raub Pahang and the other in Muar, Johor.

If you face the same problem and wanted my professional recommendation please call 017 7551318.