It happened to be a two stories BH made of wood and cement boards.
While is Semporna I was tracked by this school teacher who happened to be reading my blog.
He knew that I was coming to his home town and he make every effort to track me up to my hotel.
I have never met him but he was very persistence about getting my attention.
Early morning of December 15th 2012 I was having my breakfast and he called to seek my time.
I told him to come over and within less than 20 minutes he was at the lobby alone.
He joined me for a cup of coffee and started his stories about what is happening to his BH.
"Pak Harry my BH is made of wood and have been in operation for almost 8 months. So far there were no nests but I think there are a number of birds staying. I need your help to view what can be the reasons why they refuse to stay and to make nests."
Looking at his expression I think he was not very happy with what was happening and need my second opinion.
He soon took me over and there in front of me a BH made of wood just at the back of his house.
It looks impressive and those birds should like the house.
I entered through a small door and checked his sound system.
Not bad since he was using something like I always preaches.
The external and internal sounds seems to be al right I believed the internal sound was those of superbabyking while the external was not in my library. An old sound that I must have left out.
The next move was to inspect the roving areas and the two floors.
The top most was too bright and the number of bird shit on the floor was little and thin.
The second floor looks more promising but it was still quite bright.
Both floors were not very conducive as far as the birds are concerned.
Those bright lights were coming from the roving room just below the monkey house.
"Pak Harry my consultant says it was okay when I asked him."
I thought of telling him that if it was okay then why was he chasing to get me over.
I stressed to him about the special gift that those swiftlet has. They have the ability to use a kind of echo sounder which allows them to fly in total darkness.
Since they have this special gift they prefer to build their nests in a closed enclosure that is pitched dark.
The rule of the thumb is 2 feet apart and you cannot see each other's face.
Told him precisely how to close the roving areas and open about 3 feet doors floor up.
Another interesting observation was those bird shits spots on the floor.
I wanted to show him where the bird shit spots were on the floor and where the tweeters were on the nesting planks.
It was like look down there is a spot and when you look up there is a tweeter.
"Mr H this row there were 5 bird shit spots and if you count the number of tweeters there are the same numbers. Why don't you increase the tweeters number to ten?"
He was amused with my request and it make senses.
"If you have five tweeters and all of them have a large spot of bird shit below, why don;t you install ten?"
He never thought about it.
I precisely told him where those new tweeters should be installed.
The next was about external sound tweeters.
"Do you realized that your BH external sounds are only made available at the monkey house areas?"
Well according to him his Sifu told him that you do not need those external sound in the nesting rooms.
The same mistakes and it seems that this short sightedness in common in swiftlet industry.
The best was to install about one or two kite tweeters to lure those birds inside the vip rooms.
I left him with a few advises on what he needed and took a small drink at his house.
Pak Harry I wanted to show you this marketing materials from my Sifu.
I flipped through and I was surprised to see more than 15 pictures out of about 50 were from my blog.
"I think your Sifu is a copycat. He copied these pictures into his marketing materials and came over to Tawau to bluff every body that he is good."
My frank opinion about your Sifu is that he have many more chapters to finish before teaching you about swiftlet farming.
He should call me and let me tell him some mistakes that he should have avoided.
I understand that he has a group of followers who uses his uncooked knowledge.
I guarantee you that all his followers have the same problems where those birds came but refuse to stay or stays but refuse to build their nests.
Told him that he was lucky to have got me over and pin point those mistakes.
I guaranteed him that if he modified as per my recommendations, a few things, his BH will be okay.
Just trust my gut feelings I told him.
PS: This BH owner called me a few months ago and confirmed now his BH has more than 20 nests after less than 3 months after revamping according to my advises.
No comments:
Post a Comment