Port Klang: Old BH To Be Reconstructed !!!

While on the way back from my home town, received a friendly call from Mr.K about his venture in Port Klang (PK).

He would like me to drop by at PK today as soon as I touch down KL. I told him, how about 5pm? To me this will be the best time to see the unit plus the fact that I can take note of those birds when they come back from their feeding routine.

I took the KESAS highway toward PK till the very end. He pick me up at the first Petronas Petrol Station as agreed. Sharp at 5.00pm I was there waiting for him.

I followed his car and it takes less then 10 minutes to reach.

The moment I step out of my car I can clearly see the long row of shop houses, three stories high and facing the two tier bridge, about three stories high running just about 10 meters infront of the building. There were at least 10 lots per row of three shop houses.

Out of the 30 lots, at least ten units were converted to BH.

The back portion of the targeted unit there are a few apartments about 5 stories high plus a mosque.

Hmm ......... Looks very interesting but there lots of questions to be answered ...

Once the surrounding were inspected, went upstairs to inspect the two floors that Mr.K is keen to have it converted to be his maiden BH.

The two units, top most and the second floor looks pretty good. It was previously tenanted by also a BH enthusiast but after 3 years have given up the hope. There were at least 30 nests just before he ripped all the gadgets installed and now bare. The top floor ceiling were taken down and the floors were littered with planks, dust, ceiling boards, window panels and etc.

I am very amused at some of the BH features left by the old tenant. The way the wooden nests were installed and those ventilation holes on the walls. There were no smell of any aroma or birdshit in the house.

The only floor with 30 nests were the top most floor. The lower floor have zero nest after three long years. It seem that the designer have block the path to the lower floor. I told Mr.K that the previous owner seem to have very little idea of how birds move in a restricted areas.

Mr.K remarked that the guy who owned the place is also an active consultant to many others in the area. Hmmm .......I am pretty sure his clients are facing the same problems of not enought birds accupying their BH. On the bright side of thing if he was the one who provide consultancy to those owners on the same row, we have a very good opportunities to bring all those birds to a new home.....

After the 40 minutes inspection we set down for a cup of coffee to come out with a rought sketch of how the unit should be modified.

Mr.K seem to be very well prepared. He took out a sketch which he have been working on for some weeks. Just wanted me to make some comments plus any changes that are deem fit.

I was pretty impressed with what he did with the little that he learned from my blog but a few things were very clear that need my immediate intervention.

Well, all in all, he will start the operations immediately and he have agreed to have me to be his advisor. Works will start tommorrow and we have agreed to use the open roof concept with tunnel features.

Best of luck to Mr.K and I wish him well .....

Klang BirdHouse: Visit Report Completed

Finally got the visit report completed less those pictures.

Tonight I am going thru again for the 5th time and see what else to be added or to deleted.

Once ready, I am thinking of meeting Mr Y this Sunday to perhaps give him the draft copy.

I will also will ask his permission to allow me to distribute the report to those who would like to learn from his misadvanture. If he give the green light I will do so however if he says no, I have to apologies to all those who have send in their request email.

We have to be fair to him and let him decide.

The report consist of about 16 pages of A4 document. I have laid about 24 recomendations/points which I hope he will be able digest.

These points are something that I feel very neccessary for any person in his position should try to be prepared.

I also stressed the important of learning the basics and from time to time he need to go into the micro of birdnest farming.

I am very sure that he will appreciate my findings but I want to stress that these finding are my opinion. They are not a rule or a cure to all the problems that he is facing. They might work but they might not be the only things to do ...

If I were him I will get one or two more people who are willing to help to diagnose the same problem and get their points. He can then combined all the points and select which one can be the best solutions. Perhaps he can choose some and reject the rest and set an implementation schedule to quickly get his house populated.

PS: He just informed me that he got one more person to view today. Unfortunately this person told him he know how and what to do but he will only tell him once he is given the consultancy works to renovate the bouse. I keep assuring him that most of these people are just looking at his weaknesses and going for a kill. All in all his knowledge about siwftlets is very little in deed. I asked him just be carefull and let me get the visit report by this Sunday....

Latest: Email to Mr Y a copy and asked him to review and make some comments.

Distress Call From Port Klang !!!

Saw this distress message from SMC Forum where a birdhouse owner seem to have difficulties in populating his 3 years old house.

His name is Mr Y and got interested in birdhouse farming by accident.

Beside meeting him, there were three other SMC members who turned up to give him a helping hand.

He was very greatfull for our good intentions and gladly arranged for seafood lunch.

My Iteniary:

Sunday Jan 13th, 2008:

Started at around 9.30am from Kuala Lumpur to Port Klang, NorthPort.

The trip took me about 45 minutes to reach. Prior to leaving SMS Mr Y, the birdhouse owner, to be there by then.

He was on time and the first thing I asked him to do is to sit down somewhere to fill up a 6 pages quentionaires that I wanted to use in my diagnosis.

Once finished we went up to view the first floor.

Humidity was around 87% and temperature was at 28.9*C.

There were a few nests, not more then 10, but the most glaring was the type of wood used by his consultant as the nesting area. Small in width, less then 4 inches, and about 3/4 inch thick. There were no groove on all the wooden planks.

Corner covers were installed using a diagonal plank with hole at the back.

There were two humidifiers but both were not running.



At the back portion of the nesting areas, the planks show signs of white ants eating away the corner covers plus the nesting wood. It looks very serious and there is a very strong potential that these white ants might attack the roof trusts of the unit.

There are sign that the ants comes via the toilet.



Once we completed the 1st floor, we went up to the 2nd floor looking for more white ants signs and any other problems that were not helping the birds from coming.

White ants were mainly at the back portion but have started to move towards the center of the nesting roof.

There were about 20 full cup nests but there were two strange things that we saw on the floor. 1st there was an egg shell and two dead young birds.



Entered the roving area and observed the entrance hole.

Took plenty of pictures and I am sure these pictures will help a lot with the diagnosis.

There was no hygrostat used for the all four humidifiers (two upstairs and two downstairs). All were connected to a conventional timer.

He just took over from his consultant and has very little ideas what have been done or what to do next???

I believed this was a case where one who have very little knowledge about swiftlet farming and blindly followed the advises given by a so called "Consultant".

Without proper knowledge and deep understanding of swiftlet behaviours, one tend to depend too much on these unscrupolous "Consultant". At the end of the day when they hand over the keys to him, there were so many things that were not right.

We told him that it was an expansive mistakes but there are still time to do something so that the house can be salvaged.

To me it was a sad episode of what can happen to any person who are too excited to get his shoplot converted without doing proper study on how to be a successful swiftlet rancher.



After getting all the necessary informations, one of our SMC member wanted to show his newly build birdhouse. He started the house (switch on the sound system) about three months ago and he complained that there were no sign of birds entering the house.

We decided to have a quick visit. He took more then a year to study on how birdnest should be before designing his own birdhouse. He claimed that he uses no or little help from any Sifu.

The house, I would like to say, was a beautiful work piece of five stars birdhouse hotel. Owesome and fantastic.

Three and a quarter stories high, solid, 35 feet by 70 feet, built on a 2 1/2 acres agricultural land. Each floor was about 15 feet high.

We entered the house and moved to the 3rd floor. We also climbed up to the roof top. It was simply marvelous.

This house to me is one of the well designed unit, with all the necessary features built in to become an ideal birhouse. Each floor the roof were installed with red Meranti with proper grooves, complete with corner covers, the room temperature was at 28*C and humidity was 85.6%.

On the rooftop he built a pool and have a hexagonal tweeter that seem to attract lots of birds to his house.

He also installed a tweeter on the highest nesting floor with external sound playing on it. Something that is recommended by many experienced Sifus.

His only complain: "How come the bird do not enter my house?". Well I reserve my comment but I know he knows why .......













I promised to prepare my visit report to Mr Y and before I left, gave him a few tips inclusive of gifts that he was very happy to have. I am very sure he feel much better then before he met us.
His stress index must have gone down tremendously. The best was that he made new friends who are courageous enought to be there to advise him what he should do to salvage his birdnest house which he dearly wanted to be a successful one.

The visit report will be made available to those who are curious to know the true pictures of this birdhouse and hopefully it will help them to know how to correct those errors. Please send your email to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com ...