A Typical And Dangerous Approach In Starting A BH !!!

Out of the seven participants participated in my November 3rd 2012 Swiftlet farming seminar two were rushing to build a BH, two already have their BHs while the rest were on their research path.

The two who is rushing seems to be like wanting to rush to the airport to catch the next flight out of town.

They have just bought a piece of land in Vo Kong in Vietnam and wanted to start their first BH as soon as they reach home after attending my Seminar.

They behave as if tomorrow is the last day of this planet earth.  Rushing to get all the information about designing and finishing their dream house.

One participant from Sabah was a bit cool.

He was with me yesterday alone visiting a BH that I have it keys with me.

His concern was more about his one month old wooden BH that was erected by a contractor of whom was recommended by a well known BH owner.

"Pak Harry what concern me most is that the contractor have too little knowledge and his finishing were a bit too bare.  Only 60 tweeters for two floors."

He showed me the sketch of his BH and ask my sincere comment about what should be done to improve his chances.

After briefly looking at the sketch I recommended him to do a few things.

First I asked him to relocate the hexagonal tweeter to a new location.  I told him to push the position to be above the entrance hole.  Currently it was a bit far from the main entrance hole. Remember the height above the roof to be about 1.5 feet high.

The second was to install about 50 or more of those fake nests.  He can either buy some from me or perhaps use those 3/4" thick styrofoam and cut them into about 1"X5" each.

"You can buy these styrofoam from any stationary shops that sells books and items for school going children."

The third suggestion was to use the "Super Pheromone" on those fake nests and those corners closed to those internal sound playing tweeters.  Try to control the usage.  Use about 1/3 cannister per occasion. I guaranteed him that these Pherome works well in Sabah.  I have a person in Sabah who showed me his proofs that it works in your hometown, i stressed to him.

I also asked him to apply those kite tweeters.  Install about 2 pieces per floor.  Install them somewhere where you wanted those birds to build their nests, I told him.

The most important is to try to change those internal and external sound.  My suggestion was to change his internal sound to babyking and the external using my Super 208.

My final advice to him was to invite me to have a site visit of his BH and perhaps allow me to prepare a full report on what I believed can be done to improve his BH further.

It was a very fruitful time with me, he said.  Thank you very much Pak Harry and your have been a very honest man who do not take advantage of a newbie like me.

I reminded him that I am doing all these teaching because of my objective in this retired age.  My main objective is to help people to reduce their failure rate.

If I can help one newbie a month is good enough. Follow my suggestion and I think you will find that they will help to populate your BH.

Thank your god for giving this opportunity to come and meet me.

I am very honoured to have met you, I told him.

There were another two Filipinos newbies who also followed one of visit arrange earlier.  They were on a research journey.

"Pak Harry, I am not sure if in Philippine those swiftlet are available.  I will do the test call and once they responded to your Duress sound I will inform you.  Thank you for your suggestion to use your Black cloud as a spare sound."

Both were satisfied with the way I handle the seminar plus taking them to view a number of stand alone BHs on Sunday.

"Pak Harry you have not failed us.  The moment we started reading you blog we told ourselves that we need to meet you one day.  Now we are with you and from what were read and listen to your talk it was the most satisfying thing to have come and meet you in person.  You are a true sincere person who share all his knowledge like no others."

I feel so happy with the kind remarks they made.

Deep inside me I feel that there is still a lot more things to do.

There are many many more newbies out there who not as fortunate as these people who attended my seminar.

I wish that all of them can at least attend my seminar one time in their life before they start building their dream BH.

Please come and listen to what I have discovered and use them to your advantage.

Every person who attend my Seminar will turn into a new person with lots of knowledge that can be used as their weapon to move into this swiftlet farming war zone.

You cannot go to a war with just a knife or no weapon.  You need to be ready with every possible weapon to face your challenges.

Please try to attend my informative and valuable seminars.  They are worth every penny that you pay me.

If you can try to refresh your knowledge once a year by attending refresher course.

Call 0177551318 today and book a seat for my next Swiftlet Farming Seminar to be held on January 5th 2013. Catch the three early birds seats.

Remember you have a chance to visit a BH in operation.

November 3rd Seminar !!!

A small group of swiftlet newbies attended my November 3rd 2012 seminar.

Two from The Phillipine, two from Vietnam, one from Thailand and two from Sabah.

I was very happy to serve them and after the full day talking and explaining my points all left with a very happy heart.

We started with a short history on swiftlet farming.  I introduced how it began and when it started in Malaysia.

The next interesting topic was what a newbie must know about those swiftlet.  I focus more on their strength and weaknesses.  If you know their strength and weaknesses you can know how to cheat them.

The most interesting topic was about how to locate the right piece of land to build a BH.  Beside knowing the number of birds responded to your bird call sound you might also like to know where are their flying path.  Both knowledges will help to design and orientate your BH.

The Design criteria of a BH was something new to most of these newbies.  I touched on the requirement of those birds a right enclosure size to fly in a circle.  Use this minimum size to design the rest.

The important on the right sound for your BH was covered in the 3rd last topics.  I wanted to stress to them that if your BH have no proper sound it will equivalent to you without having your heart pumping.

The second last topic were more on various interesting gadgets that I have discovered and help to populate any BH.  The kite, chandeliers and chocolate tweeters were exposed.

My last topic was about those two important phases to run your BH.  If you wanted to accelerate your new population increase try to adopt the force harvest once a year.

Started at about 8:30 am and I finally finished at about 8:30pm.  Twelve hours straight and managed to reach home at about 9:00pm.

I was a bit tired and took an early sleep for I do need to take four of these newbies to a field trip.

Today took the four to Karak BH and Hulu Langat.

All went well and by 7:00pm I was back at home.

May god bless these group of newbies with the swiftlet farming projects.

Your BH Internal Sound !!!

The first thing you need to do is not to blame others but yourself if your BH nests population is too little as compared to the number of birds staying in.

One of my favourite topic during my once every two months Swiftlet Farming Seminar is about "What You Should Know About Swiftlet Sounds."

I strongly believed that those who have little knowledge about the effect of sounds on those flying birds you will have a difficult tasks to populate your BH.

A good and right internal sound for example will seduce those young couples to quickly mate and once the sexual relation starts the couple will quickly start building their new nests.

However if you by accident, due your poor knowledge, use a wrong sound your young couples will stay in without having any desire to build and own a nest.

Good example is when you play those good external sound the whole night long or your internal sound is an external sound my mistake.

During these last few days I have been receiving lots of queries about BHs that have lots of birds inside but the number of nests inside were less than 10 percent of the total couples.

When I called and investigate about their problem the following were their answers:

1) Pak Harry I don't actually know what is the name of the internal sound.  My contractor was the one who install the sound and I leave everything to him to manage my BH.

My comment:  I think he leave the destiny of his investment to his contractor.  If one day that guy decide to end the relationship the owner will be left stranded with a heavy investment will no return of profit. He should take some initiative to learn more about swiftlet sounds and manage a library of his own.

2) Pak Harry, I used those external sound as my internal sound.  Those birds stays but the number of nests is too little.

My comment:  As far as I know only "BabyKing" sound can be used both as external and internal sound.  The rest will cause a kind of disaster.  Those birds tend to become super active all night long if your internal sound is the same as your external sound. They will not take position and they tend to make love with the tweeters and not their partner.

3) Pak Harry I play the external sound for 24 hours and never stop the sound at all.  My birds population are  about 200 but the number of nests is less than 10.

My comment:  Usually I will encourage the external sound to be stop somewhere between 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.  Main reason is to get those birds to change their position from clutching on the external sound tweeters to those internal sound tweeters. Once they anchored themselves onto those internal sound tweeters they will soon seduced to make love (subjected to hearing a good internal sound of course). So I asked this guy to stop his sound at about 8:00 pm and monitor the change within the next three months.

4) Pak Harry, I don't actually know how to differentiate between external and internal sound.  So I just play whatever sound that I wanted to.

My comment:  This person deserve when he prescribe.  "I don't know how to differentiate between internal and external." He is hoping for some kind of luck.  Every BH owner should learn how to differentiate between external and internal sound.  If you are not sure call 017 7551318.  The best is to come and attend my Seminar held every 2 months.  You will change your BH environment if you use the right sound as your internal sound.  Try not to make similar mistakes as others.

I remember an incident about 8 months ago when a BH owner from Yong Peng Johor called me about his BH birds strange behaviours.

"Pak Harry, I need your advise.  I have been counting the number of birds that entered my BH everyday for one week.  What happen here is that when the external sound stop at 8:00 pm all except 5 stayed.  Total number of birds entered were more than 100.  Please help !!!"

My advice to him was to quickly change the internal sound.

Now he asked "What internal sound should I changed it to?".

Try Super Babyking, I told him.

I sent the sound and immediately after installing the newly acquired sound he called back.

"Pak Harry, you are right.  Now the reverse is happening.  Only five flew out while the rest are staying inside.  Thank you Pak Harry."

You are welcome I told him.

The lesson from this interesting event is that you have to be very careful with your internal sound.

When you use the wrong sound those birds that have entered will fly out after your external sound is switched off.

Maybe you might want to share your experiences.  Please email your story to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com

Swiftlet Flying Behaviour Inside My Kepong BH Monkey House !!!

Yesterday went into my Kepong BH for some preparation works.

Did some inspection on those insect generating set and they were working pretty well.  Nearly all the yellow containers were with lots of maggots.

Those flying insects were all over the place and some were seen at the main entrance hole.

Did some change to the sound and sprayed insecticide since there were lots of cockroaches on the floor.

While working of the sound I saw some interesting movements inside the roving area inside the monkey house.

There seems to be a large number of swiftlet entering the area and managed to snap a video clip.

The reasons why they entered could be because of:

1) The new sounds that I invented the night before.  This new sound is under testing operation.  Have not given its name but working on something like "Gangnam".

2) The smell of those insecticide why I sprayed quite a lot.  The whole nesting room have this soothing smell.

3) Maybe because I watered the yellow boxes.  Those insects must have been stirred up and they are flying all over the room thus will invite those swiftlet to chase after them.

4) It could be the weather outside.  Been raining heavily these few days.


Overall the activities inside this BH is encouraging.  Lots of activities and I am happy to have been looking after it for many months.

The owner wanted me to harvest some nests for him and I promise to do it next week.

Those of you who are new and have no opportunity to view BHs please call 017 7551318.  Will arrange a trip into BHs is you wish to.

The Super Pheromone Is Performing Well !!!

To those who have never try my "Super Pheromone" spray please take note of this latest development.

Today I was shock with an order of 200 cannisters in one lot.

"Pak Harry I came to know about your "Super Pheromone" from Cambodia.  I was searching for the supplier and I came across your blog.  I need to stock up for overseas requirement."

The exact word from a friend who operate a shop selling BH related equipment.

The hidden story here is that the pheromone seems to be a highly priced item in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The spray seems to easily lure those swiftlet into BHs in these two countries.

It also works very well in Sabah and Sarawak.

In Peninsular I have tested it in a number of places and it works too.

I think it works well if you know how to apply the produce.

My recommendation is to use it with those fake nests.

If you have not tried it please call 017 7551318.

Who knows it will make your BH more resident within a much shorter time.

Call now.

Pictures showing the results after spraying the pheromone:

An Interesting E-Mail From A Visitor Who Visited KL Recently !!!

One of the best accomplishment after a hard days work is hearing someone said thank you for all the effort that you put in with lots of dedication.

When people appreciate your contribution you will feel some kind of a new energy to continue giving and do more for the industry.

Just try to read this short message just received yesterday October 29th, 2012:

Hello Pak Harry,

I would like to thank you personally for making my trips taking me around visiting the populated BH at Kepong and Hulu Langat recently so meaningful. 

I will try to apply the knowledge and method I gained in preparing the insect generating powder from you. 

I will apply those to my BH during next visit to my BH this weekend.


Even though the visit was short but i considered myself very lucky as the result of these most treasurable experienced that will never last for the benefit of my BH.

You are wonderful, enthusiastic and special gifted person that could talked never ending stories or discussion about swiftlet farming. 

I will urge and suggest to the newbies to contact and learn from the right mentor (sifu), i.e. YOU, Pak Harry.

Once again, Thanks.

Regards,

P.P. (Kota Kinabalu)

I remember the first time I met him in Kota Kinabalu about 1.5 years ago.

He attended my short seminar in KK plus tested my "Super Pheromone" in his BH made of wood.

The Pheromone works very well and the time have come to learn more new methods to increase his BH nest population.

His partner wanted him to go deeper into learning new things and that was why he came down to Kuala Lumpur to get my advises.

One of the thing I was very fascinated with his BH venture was the wooden BH.

My personal advice to him was to write a short story on how he started the idea of building a wooden BH as compared to others who spend at least two times the amount for a BH.

I wanted a story that will encourage more people to go into swiftlet farming in a more affordable method.

This was when he invited me to visit his BH to start the project.

I plan to be in KK soon and I am sure this special story will be a good example to those newbies who cannot afford a huge budget.

Another Visitor But This Time From Cambodia !!!

Received another visitor but this time from Cambodia.

A very young man with a list of problems with his BH.

I answered his call about one week ago and wanted to meet me on an urgent basis.

"Pak Harry I will be flying this Sunday and please be available on Monday." he insisted.

I told him to bring a sketch of his BH, as many photos as possible plus the type of sounds he is currently using.

His problem was that the birds entered his BH but they refuse to stay.

"I got only those bats staying and not swiftlet."

He began by telling me how he was convinced by his uncle to start building a BH and place some sound at the entrance hole.

His uncle told him nothing to worry and it will be populated within less than 3 months.

After 2 months nothing except those bats.  His uncle started his missing action by refusing to answer his phone call.

"I was so desperate and started to search for some help from the internet."

After finding the right person he decided to fly to KL and meet me in person.

Once the drawing and pictures were put forward I know exactly why his BH was not populated.

The BH design was not properly done.  It was a square three stories high building with 10mX10m dimension.

From the look at the monkey house and the roving area the chances for those swiftlet to travel downstairs was almost zero percent chance.

I cannot understand why his uncle adopt such a weird dimension.

Managed to advise the owner to do some major revamp to shut the current entry holes into the nesting room and open a door instead just before the LAL.

The two sound he brought were both external sounds.

Which one is the internal sound?

He pointed to the second sound.

I told him that the sound was not suitable to be used as internal sound.  His first sound was my "Black Cloud".

Change to either the "BabyKing" or the "SuperBabyKing." I insisted.

He settled for a few new external sounds.

After showing him the Kepong BH I took him back to his hotel.

He was very lucky to have discovered my blog.

Those of you who happened to be facing the same problem please arrange to call Harry at 017 7551318.

Bachok BH: Nothing To Brag About !!!

The installation of nesting planks and sound system went well and I was a bit tired after the 4 weeks of being at site.

The worst was to drive home from Bachok to Kuala Lumpur about 9 hours drive.

I could not allow my workers to take over the wheel since they do not have driving license.

Some of those things that were installed during this project were as follows:

1) Opening of an additional entrance hole facing the padi fields at the back. We actually need a door or window to reach the roof areas.  The contractor who erect this BH forgot about the need of reaching the roof to install those hexagonal tweeter, bazooka and my last tango tweeters.

2) The new window was later converted into an additional entrance hole.

3) There were two hexagonal tweeters installed.  One the common sized hexagonal plus a massively huge medium size bazookas into one.

4) The owner bought two long range bazookas.  I only installed one.

5) Ten power tweeters were installed around the monkey house walls for my last tango operation.

6) The owner bought 5  expensive tweeter "powerline" motorola equivalent tweeters for the main window. We need to use separate line to supply the sound signal.

7) To draw those birds into the nesting room I took some trouble to install at least four chocolate tweeters on each floor.

8) The VIP rooms were installed with four kite tweeters each.

9) Most of the VIP rooms were installed with cluster tweeters about 20 sets each room.

10) There we four VIP rooms in the BH.  One on the top most floor, two on the middle floor and one at the ground floor.

11) I told the owner that I used 500 2"X5" internal sound tweeters.

12) Beside tweeters I personally installed about 250 fake nests mostly those silicone and aluminium types.

13) Each floor has its own amplifier to operate the internal sound tweeter.

14) For external sound I used two amplifiers, solid state, playing super 208 and Pukau.

15) This BH was with my "Last Tango" timer arrangement. A total of 10 power tweeters were connected to the amplifier to be blasting from 6:30pm till 7:30pm.

16) The walls of the BH was sprayed with Mutiara aroma four times.

17) Two sets of insect generating powder were activated.

18) The ground floor were sprayed with fendona insecticide to curb those ants.

19) Two wet floor system were implemented inside the two VIP rooms on the 1st floor.

20) The owl prevention power lines were installed on both windows.

21) The wall that were in direct path of the sunlight were painted with dark colored paint.

22) An air fan to cool the amplifiers.

23) The nesting planks were covered with special aroma.

24) The fake nests were sprayed with super Pheromone.

It was one of the toughest thing to do especially climbing the staircase and ladder to install all the needful.

Before going home the sound were tested and the number of birds entering was encouraging.

My hope is that the owner will look after the BH and ensure that both the internal and external sound are constantly operational.

Sabah Has Not Less than 4000 BHs !!!

This article confirmed that Sabah now has not less than 4000 BHs and 80% were in town areas.

Read this article and see if you can find the number:

SANDAKAN: 

The Sabah Swiftlet Farming Association (SSFA) believes that some points of the 15 

guidelines introduced by the Wildlife Department came abruptly and might have been overblown.

In a meeting between the Sabah Bird’s Nest Industry Association (Saba) and SSFA, both presidents, Datu Faisal Datu Bachtiyal and Yap Chen Guan briefed their members on the issue that might affect a large number of swiftlet farmers in Sabah.

About 50 farmers attended the meeting.

There are currently over 4,000 swiftlet houses in Sabah, and according to Yap, 80 per cent of those houses are located within the restricted areas mentioned in the guidelines.

Both parties agreed that the two-year time frame to move swiftlet houses was too short and would result in losses for farmers, especially those who just stepped into the industry.

“Two years are too short. Many farmers have taken a 15-year loan for nurturing the swiftlets and harvesting their nests. These include houses in Sandakan municipality,” said Yap.

Yap and Faisal contended that swiftlet farming provides plenty of benefits to Sabah’s socio-economy and but the former felt that some points raised in the guidelines were an imposition rather than an outline for regulation.

Other issues  such  as bird house locations and recording of bird activities, which include death and population were also raised.

However, both parties felt that most of the guidelines were acceptable and Faisal believed an understanding between the government and swiftlet farmers is imperative and needed to work out a solution that will satisfy farmers and the government.

Mat Saha of Syarikat Gerak Borneo, Saba’s consultancy, said the issues had been discussed extensively and they came up with several suggestions to improve the guidelines.

“The government needs to be more flexible on this. They have to understand that some of us (in the industry) have been around for a long time. We also provide royalties to the government through taxes.

“As for the recording of birds, we leave it up to the government. We can open the industry to students for research. This will also benefit our socio-economy,” said Mat.

He added that the guidelines issue and those involving international trading would be brought up at a National Swiftlet Conference in Kuala Lumpur towards end of November which will be officiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

Meanwhile, a meeting between swiftlet farmer associations across Sabah will be held on Nov 1 in Kota Kinabalu to address the guidelines issue.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/10/30/association-some-of-points-in-swiflet-farming-guidelines-unfair/#ixzz2AklBOeKK

A Visitor From Kota Kinabalu, Sabah !!!

"Pak Harry please make yourself available on October 25, 2012.  I wanted to learn more about insect generation system."

That was made about two months ago and he came down with his wife to KL.

First thing in the morning I was at his hotel for a cup of coffee and a roti chanai.

We started with a short discussion on his purpose to be in Kuala Lumpur and I took note what he wanted to accomplished.

First he wanted to learn as much as he can about how to start those insect generation.

Then he wanted to purchase my latest sound.

He also wanted to purchase a few bags of those insect generating powder.

To get him to learn on how to start those insect breeding system I took him to Kepong.  This particular place was where I started two sets of racks that were filled with those insect generating powder soup.

They were already in operation for almost four months and doing very well.

What I did was to teach him on how to mix those powder until they are thick enough before pouring into four new containers.

He was amazed after knowing how simple it was to activate the insect powder.

After getting the right amount into those yellow containers I asked him to lay them beside those old trays which are already breeding lots of insects.

My next stop was to visit another BH, a stand alone at Hulu Langat, Selangor.

I was given some privileges to allow my visitors to enter this BH, only the ground floor.

This was where the visitor got a higher shock when he saw how many insects there were on and around the rack.






"Very interesting and unbelievable." he said.

This second BH visit sealed his doubt about insect generation.

He was so convinced and bought 3 bags of the insect powder I have been talking about.

I sincerely hope that it will benefit his BH.

I promised to call on him during my next trip to KK,

He might be my source of information about a BH made of wood.

To those who wanted to learn more about insect generating plus visit to a few sites to observe the installation please call 017 7551318.

Captured One But There Were Two More !!!

Finally managed to captured one of the three owls that were using the Bachok BH as their first stop of the day.

I personally believed that there are some reasons why those owls keep coming into the empty BH and leaved their markings all over the entrance area.

We usually will say that they wanted to leave those marking as territory markings.

I think there are more to that.

What I can see every time I entered the BH are those balls of vomits and white spots on the floor.

I think the owls used the entrance area as a place to get ready for their hunting works.

They need to shit and vomit those undissolved food parts which they swallow the night before.

They need a safe place to vomit the leftovers.

Maybe during that moment they will get to be closed to each other.

Serenade each other, perhaps grooming and maybe mate.

They spend a considerable amount of time in the house before flying out to hunt for rats.

It Took Me 9 Hours Drive To Reach Home !!!

Started my journey home from Bachok Kelantan at 3:00pm and reach home at 12:00am.

Nine hours on the long and winding road just to help a BH owner.

It was the longest drive I ever took in my entire life.

The road was not as good as compared to those highways up to the north or south.

The worst was when the opposite traffic flow was very heavy due to the Hari Raya Haji celebration that will be on soon.

I think my whole body was loose and need a long rest.

Then again I received a call from another visitor who happened to be in Kuala Lumpur wanted more information about those insect generating system.

There goes my supposed to be my rest day.

The BH in Bachok was completed and the most interesting was to the number of birds entering the top floor during sound testing operation.

The part owner was impressed with the magic formula but I was not that impressed in full.

During my drive home I was told that on the first day of operation the number of birds entered were impressive.

Both entrance windows were successfully used by the birds.

My hope and wish for this BH is that there will be plenty of birds entering and staying as a permanent tenants.

The location is fined and the system inside was the best in the whole of Kelantan, I assured the owner.

Myth: The Light At The Entrance Hole Prevent Those Owls From Entering ???

A typical myth about the use of light at the entrance hole of your BH.

"If you install those bright light at night just outside the entrance hole will keep those owl away."

Totally not true.

I have photos to prove to you all that the use of light will not stop those owl from entering your BH entrance hole.

While installing those nesting planks and sound system at Bachok Kelantan BH I found out that the owl markings were all over the floor especially in the monkey house area.

The entrance hole was already installed with a light bulb and will be on from 7:00 pm until 10:00 pm.

During my presence at the location I have the opportunity to watch how these owl entered the BH for about a few minutes and later flew out to hunt for food.

This BH was new with no sound system and not a single nest.

What do you think they came in for?

From what I can think off, they came in for a few reasons.

The first was because they wanted to throw both their shit and vomit those clump of left overs skin & bones.

I believed once they consume their favourite food (usually rats) the will swallow whole.

Once that is done the juice inside their stomach will dissolve those flesh but the skin and bones have to be remove by vomiting.

Their shit seems to be made of whitish colored materials.

Once they have done this particular session they will start their hunting work.

Everyday they will do the same thing.

If there are baby birds inside your BH, I am sure they will clean them up for you.

Today my staff called and indicated to me that they have captured one of the owl.

They are as big as a large sized chicken.

Pak Harry what are we going to do with it?

I have not decided but I wish I could roast it and have it as a meal.

Something like roast chicken.