Kepala Batas BH: The Main Predator (Owl) Was Captured !!!

On Tuesday November 25th 2015, I entered this BH at Kepala Batas to check on the status of those traps installed about three weeks ago.

The best thing to see was the trap working as per my prediction.

The wood that was provided on the trap must be very attractive to the owl.

The moment the owl rest on it the clamp will shut on it and trapped until someone come and release it.

This owl trap is more friendly and if the owl is detected trap earlier you can capture it and perhaps release it far away from your BH.

Once done my BH now is free perhaps from one of the many owls staying in this territory.

I am sure that there will be more to come.

However this the two traps installed I can peacefully have a good night sleep.

If any new one should enter they will be once again be captured and release far away from my BH.

Now need to set a date to clean and rinse those markings left.

Pasir Mas BH No 2: Explored Inside And I Listed A Number of Defects During My Visit !!!

Due to my careless ticket booking I lost about 1 hour for this short trip to Pasir Mas, Kelantan.

I was about to board the plane when I was told that my ticket was for yesterday's flight and not that day.

Oh shit, I was very embarrassed but got to take it that it was my silly mistake.

I was lead to the ticket counter and purchase a new ticket.

The lost of one hour makes my trip to Pasir Mas a closed call.

After finishing the inspection of the first unit I was hurriedly taken away to the second unit.

On the way to this BH the owner was complaining that he has a friend who can harvest 30 kg a week and why can't he get about 10% of that?

I could not find the answer until I reached his BH.

This BH was located in a residential area.  This is not a very nice place to have a BH.

The first thing I observed was the wrong direction of the main entrance hole.

It was facing the birds flying out in the morning and not the birds flying home in the evening.

The other issues found not right with the BH are listed as follows:

1) He need to look into changing the main entrance hole to face the opposite side.  My advise to him was to face the direction towards the birds flying home path and not the opposite.

2) One that is done I told him to relocate his hexagonal tweeter to be precisely above the new hole.

3)  I gave his some ideas about putting additional tweeters where to place them and with them he should look into running his BH with two external sounds.

4) I commented to him about his so many type of tweeters found inside his BH.  My concern was their resistivities.  The lowest resistance will be louder while the higher resistance will give little or no sound.

5) The areas below the monkey house need to be realigned and opened with a door.  I precisely told him where to open the new door so that those birds that flew inside using the new LMB will able to enter the nesting room areas.

6) I told him to use AG 35 tweeters as the only external sound tweeter types for the main sound.

7) One very common mistake found in most BHs is the ignorance of how important is to force those birds to fly above the LAL.  This BH faced exactly the same problem.  Those birds were given too much freedom to fly where they wanted to but not above the LAL.  I sketched the walls he need to installed and where to open the door.

8) There was not a single room on all the floors for those birds to hide.  I drew where the rooms need to be created and where the doors should be located.

9) The owner have very little idea where the external sound tweeters should be located.  I again drew a map where they should be situated.

10) I saw two types of internal sound tweeters used in this BH.  One was the expensive Piro tweeters and the other was the standard PT 305 tweeters.  The Piro tweeters seems to attract more attention while the 305 was not so.  However the owner wrongly located these tweeters.  I also have this gut feeling that his tweeters wiring were not proper.  His electrical guy must have connect the two different type of tweeters with one line.  The Piro will be louder while the 305 will be with very little sound.

11) The owner installed a number of fake nests in his BH however they were too thin and too small.  I provided him with the right size plus its shapes (rectangular and triangular).  Please install as many as he can.

12) His external sound is still okay and with two external sounds as per recommendation he needed another good sound.

13) He was using the Baby King sound as his internal sound.  I told him to change to Super Babyking.

I hope all my recommendations are applied.

I promised him that he will see changes immediately after he follow my recommendations.

Pasir Mas BH No 1: Visited on November 21st 2015 !!!

I was very glad when my old friend met in University Malaya called me asking me for my expertise.

How he found me was via a whatsapp group chat.

He was shown a picture sent by one member and immediately recalled who I was.

He got my contact number and called me to view his ailing BH.

It was a big surprised but he was lucky that one member of the group was also in need of my BH inspection services.

I put the two together and both agreed to bare my expenses and a professional fee.

Upon arriving at his BH, the rain came heavily and we sat in his car watching his BH from a far.

I started to analyse and gave him some ideas what I saw from a distant.

First I asked him which direction is the sun moving in relation to his BH.

After that question I asked him which direction the birds flew home every evening.

After listening to his answers I told him what can be wrong looking on the outside.

1) I told him that his main entrance hole is facing the wrong direction.  He should have open the wall facing the bird's flying home path and not any other directions.

2) Since the flying home direction is not from the west to the east, I mentioned to him the need of one more hole to allow the morning light to guide all his birds to fly out in the morning.

3) He showed me another hole that he open much lower then the monkey house wall.  It was not installed with any external sound tweeters.  Why he did that was unknown however this bare hole seems to be the most likable by his tenants.

4) His DIY hexagonal tweeter was not at the right location.  I explained to his where he should relocate it.

5) After entering his data room I quickly adjusted his amplifiers settings.

6) The BH internal was full of errors due to little knowledge about what those birds likes and dislikes.

7) One very obvious was where the connecting window/door was located to allow those wild birds to fly into the nesting rooms.  I explained to him what is happening with the current set up where his birds cannot find the LAL and will not fly downstairs.

8) He need to reorganize all his current walls and he must make sure that every birds that enter and leaves his BH have to fly above the LAL hole.

9)  His external sound tweeters arrangement around the main entrance, at the windows and inside the nesting room make me amused and shook my head.  The person who do those installations have very little clue what they are up to.  The best advise is to remove all and use AG 35 tweeters in accordance to my recommendations.

10)  One very poor planning was the use of triple stack nesting planks arrangements on all his ceiling.  This poor design make it very difficult to lure those wild birds inside since they have very little space to fly freely.  It also make it very difficult to give the right solution on how to arrange those tweeters.

11) I found that he hung many bottles filled with raw nest water.  This must be the residue left by an unqualified consultant I called Dr F.  The hung bottles were mote like a light pole in the dark.

12) The internal sound tweeters were installed not to lure those wild birds to cling to it but more for the hanging of those raw nest water bottles.

13) The BH floor was filled with old bird shit.  These shits must be old since I cannot smell any fermented bird shit.

14) The external sound used was Black Cloud and I think it have lapse its effectiveness.

15) The internal sound was baby king but I prefer my super baby king sound.

16)  There was not a single fake nests found any where inside this BH.  To me this is a big mistake.

17)  I recommended the use of dual external sounds.

18) I also put forward the idea of using dual internal sounds.

I hope he will follow my recommendations to the dot.

Melaka BH: Owner Tried But Failed To Reactivate His BH !!!

This article is about a BH owner who tried to revive his failed BH on his own.

He engaged me to visit his BH and after the trip I wrote to him what he should do to revive it.

After receiving my report he tried to do what was recommended but after a number of almost 2 years he called asking my service to take over the responsibility.

According to him the nests number improved however it was visited by owls.

I took a short look at what he did and where the owl stayed or landed.

From my observation he nearly made it with his revamped works except very unlucky to have the night visitor(s).

He did not install any owl trap.

He seems to show the signs of a giving up the whole BH.

His work and staying too far seems to be the possible reasons.

He was asking me to take over and rework on his dead or critical stage BH.

It is possible however I need to think deeper on how to help him out.

What he need to carry out now is to eliminate the owl .

He was proposing to engage a sharp shooter but I was more like setting those special traps, two or three pieces, to capture and release.

Once that is resolved he need to clean all those owl markings on the floors.

Sanitize the place with Mutiara aroma.

Once these two are carried out I might be able to do some reorganization of two floors.

He need a mist pump sets.

All his fake nests need to be replaced and added.

External sound tweeters also need to be replaced with AG 35 and perhaps increased twice in numbers.

The whole BH need to be cleaned and sanitized.

He did very little to gather more birds on his roof top.

One thing which I was not happy about was the main entrance direction.

Currently the main entrance hole is facing the west and not the east.

This issue looks very small but if you are a very experience BH sifu you will realized how important it is to a tall and oversize BH.

Tumpat BH No 1: The BH Was Put Into Operation on November 15th 2015 !!!

I am very glad to activate this BH after almost 1 month being under renovation.

This BH will run on two external sounds and two internal sounds.

The sounds selection was by me and I went to great length to test one by one.

So far the birds reactions seems to be alright however I was not very happy with the number of birds gathered at the monkey house.

I wish there were more.

Probably due to some reasons why there seems to be little birds.

I am still very confident that the number of birds will slowly increased and hopefully within the next few months the total number of nests will doubled.

I have created the right environment, played the best sounds and there are so many goodies inside.

The floor will be wet all the time.

The walls erected will make these birds to be very confident to choose the right location to breed.

If there is more thing to add it will be a long range bazooka to be directed to the chicken farm house towards the west.

It seems that in the evening most of these swiftlet will be stopping by there to reap those insects.

I hope to be able to inspect this BH within the next few weeks.

Tumpat BH No 2: With Almost 2000 Nests Inside !!!

Last Sunday November 15th 2015 I was taken to view this heavily populated for the second time.

"Pak Harry is there a chance to increase the nests population?"  he asked my opinion.

Most people will think that once their BH is heavily populated there is nothing more to do.

Just harvest every month and who cares what is wrong with their BH.

They might be right but to me they should always think hard on how to improve their nests quality and quantity.

This Tumpat No 2 BH seems to face the following I would say sickness:

1) The number of nests have dropped by about 40-50% within the last few years.  It used to be 30 kg a harvest but now can't get 10 kg per harvest.

2) Most of the birds staying inside this BH seems to stay on the top most floor.  The ground floor have lesser then 30%.

3) During every harvest I can safely predict that the corner shaped nests will form about 70% while the rest are those 180* shaped.  There seems to be little or non activities to reverse the percentage.

4) The number of external tweeters around the main entrance area are none except for the two horn tweeter at the steel framed door.

5) I do not see any hexagonal tweeter anywhere around the roof area.

6) There was no external sound inside the nesting room.

7) The internal sound tweeters seems to be the big sized piezo tweeters and installed in a sleeping position.

8) The BH nesting planks looks very thick and strong.  However they were a bit dirty and need some sand papering.

9) The BH wetness was a bit too dry.  The BH has about three chicken coop humidifiers.

How can the total number of nests be doubled within the next 12 months?

That was what the owner was asking me crack my head.

I calmly told him that it is possible if he follow my prescriptions.

At first he wanted to laugh at my statement.

But I caution him like what will be my incentive if I can do that in perhaps 10 months?

He started to count the profits he will be harvesting.

From 2000 nests after 10-12 months it will be doubled.

2000 new nests will be almost 17 kg.

With the current raw nests price of RM 3000 he will help himself with an additional RM 51,000 per harvest.

I can see his smile and in his head there is nothing wrong to give a shot.

Besut BH: This BH Was Abandoned For 1 Year Plus !!!

A beautiful BH that was abandoned by its owner for one year plus.

The owner put it aside to concentrate on other business.

A pity that it was left to rot.

I was invited to give a honest opinion on what can be wrong with the BH.

I took about 1 hour to travel from Tumpat to its location.

Once arrived I was quite impressed with the BH outside finishing.

However its very closed proximity to residential area make me a little worried.

Upon about 45 minutes inside the BH I told the owner roughly what were wrong with his BH.

1) The main entrance hole was not facing either the morning sun or the flying home path.  Both were ignored during construction.  This tells me that the owner and his contractor have very little knowledge in almost all the things about swiftlet

2) There was nothing attractive on the monkey house structure.  No hexagonal tweeter, no bazooka, no power tweeter and so on to make the roof top attractive.

3) The number of external sound tweeters were too little around the window frame.

4) I was very concerned with the tall grass and some small trees that were touching the BH external walls.  There was no walk way around the building and all those tall grass were like climbing the BH walls.  This I think will invite a lot of unwanted predators to enter the BH or perhaps make their home inside the BH.

5) The data room looks okay however the amplifiers used were not impressive.

6) I was not impressed with the internal sound used.  It does not have many young baby birds sound on it or on its background.

7) The BH was totally dry and there was no water from its taps.  Owner confirmed that he neglected his BH in total and the pump used to suck well water up to the storage tank was faulty.

8) This BH was short and it used this elevator shaft hole system.  One straight hole about 10'X10' to the bottom.

9) The bright light entering the main entrance hole was not properly controlled.

10) All his air ventilation holes stopped at those 90* elbows.  He did not install any pipe extension to reduce the bright lights.

11) Every floor was with not a single partition wall.  Open concept and no room to go and hide.

Its a common BH with a lot of an attended issues.

The BH owner now realized his mistakes and wanted my help to tell him what and how to reactivate his stranded BH.

There were about 20-30 nests and mainly on the lowest and the top floors.

I hope I can find some time to prepare my visit report today.

God bless him.

Swiftlet Garden: First Revamp Unit !!!

Busy with works and my boys are doing what I wanted them to do.

The first thing that the BH badly needed was the right location of the entrance door.

Current connecting door was not where it should be and the consultant make it worst by erecting a box around it with the door at the opposite site where it should be.

While hacking the wall the project manager came to have a look and he asked a few relevant questions on why the brick wall was hacked.

He must be thinking that I wanted to destroy the whole house.

Within half a day the opening was done and now need some finishing.

My boys also started to pull down a number of walls.  One of the wall was not taken down however its door was relocated.

So far so good but this was only the first day of work.

By one week the first unit will look good and attractive

I am cock sure those birds will be very happy with what I have in store for them.

Swiftlet Garden Unit 93: Started Revamp Operation !!!

Birds flying path.

After grueling hours of preparation and travelling up and down I finally got my workers to start work on the first unit that was assigned to be revamped.

The owner choose the worst unit to test my expertise.

I have no problem with that and I think he have the right to do what he wanted to do with his farm houses.

Well the first thing I did was to make a round with my workers and take a lot of measurements.

After getting the current layout I came out with the following ideas on how to ensure that more birds will enter this BH and at the same time fly downwards.

The nests numbers were low but I can safely guarantee that once my revamp job is done a 100 nests will not a big problem within 10-12 months.  Maybe much earlier.

I came out my plan game:

1) Decided to move the main door connecting the top entry opened roof area and the roving room to a new location.  The new door will ensure that every bird that enter this BH will be forced to fly above the LAL hole (staircase for this BH).

2)  The new door will be taller and a bit smaller as compared to the old door.

3) The new door will be lined with proper wood lining so that it will be easier to install all those tweeters (external and internal sounds).

4) I have decided to erect an L shape partition wall to block every visitor to fly above the LAL.

5) The old box just before the connecting door (old door) will be converted into an insect breeding area.

6) The old connecting door will be totally shut and two 6"diameter elbows will be inserted on the top part.

7) To enter the top floor every birds need to pass the LAL opening and enter a door erected at a 90* corner wall joint.

8) Once entered they will have a special sizable roving area.

9) There will be two VIP rooms on this floor.


Let me show you what I have in mind.