How Frequent Should You Enter Your BH !!!

Some one from Perak called me asking about how frequent can he enter his BH.

My answer to him was something like this:

When you enter your BH it must be for some specific reasons.

But if you can try to avoid entering too frequent and for no good reason.

Try to chose the right time of the day.

Avoid those time when your tenants are still inside of start to return back for roosting.

The best is to enter your BH once a month between say 10:00 am to perhaps 3:00 pm and on a normal sunny day.

If it rain during the night or during the morning please try not to enter your BH.  Choose another day.

One method that can help to minimize damage to your nest population is to enter your BH without switching those light inside your BH.

You must use suitable torchlight or head lamp and make sure you know where those LAL holes are.

Your main purpose is not to scare those birds away and came face to face with them too frequent.

Try not to talk loudly while you are inside your BH.  Maybe you should use those writing on a paper for your partner to do like those scuba divers talking while diving.

If you can try to list the things that you and your helper wanted to do while you are inside your BH.

Good example:

Check if all those external sound tweeters are working.

Check if all your internals sound tweeters are working.

Check for any water "flooding" on the floor.

Check for any predators markings in the BH.

Check on any new bird shit spots on the floor.

Carry out NKS operation.

Clean water containers of your humidifiers.

Spray Super Pheromone onto those fake nests.

Wet your BH floor and walls.

Count the number of nests inside each floor.

Harvest those nests that are already used.

Remember every time you enter your BH there is a very strong chance that you might come face to face with those new couple who just entered your BH.

If the couple feel not secure after their first encounter with you they might say good bye to your BH.

Another common thing that will happen are when those young birds that were about to take their first flight out of your BH.

If you happened to carry out some work inside your BH these young birds might feel threatened and they might take their first flight too early.

If they are not careful they will fall onto the floor and that will be their last day as a alive bird.

All these happenings will eventually affect your tenancy population.

So be careful when you decide to enter your BH.

Do some planning and try to think of what will happen to your nests population.

This Weekend Will Be Inspecting Another Sick BH at Tikam Batu Kedah !!!

Two days ago received a call from a BH owner whose BH is somewhere at Tikam Batu, Kedah.

He got my mobile phone from a good friend of his who happened to use my BH inspection services.

I told him that I will be up in Sungai Patani and would be glad to inspect his BH.

He told me how he got into swiftlet farming about 4 years ago.

As at this moment the number of nests inside his BH is less than 5 pieces.

He cannot understand what went wrong and could not find any one who can help to reactivate his BH.

After meeting his old friend who knew me, he called to ask for my time to inspect his BH.

I told him that I will be back to SP this weekend and will allocate half a day for him.

Let see if I can find out what went wrong with his BH.

His BH was designed very similar to two BHs which I inspected and one I already revamped.

The Lenggong BH was one of the two while the other unit is in Padang Serai, Kedah.

It will be very nice to let you all know what his consultant did until not many birds wanted to stay as his permanent tenant.

Those who wanted to join me call me at 017 7551318.

October 4th Seminar Is Firmed !!!

Today met with Eastin Hotel Sales & Marketing officer and paid the necessary Seminar Room rental charges.

It will be set for 10 seats and complete with tea breaks and lunch on October 4th 2014.

About five seats still vacant and would like to invite all my blog reader to come and meet me and all the rest.


You will be entitled for all the seminar materials, lunch and tea.

You will also have the ability to meet me in person.

Meeting me for the first time will make you feel great and you will be able to get the right answers for all your BH problems.

If you wish to stay for site visit please let me know.

I have lined up two BHs for the site visit and I am sure you will get more knowledge by looking at the things installed in these BHs.

Call me at 017 7551318 for more information.

Another Sick BH At Terong Perak !!!

Another troubled BH with only about 25 nests after 18 months into operation.

The affected BH was somewhere in a small town called Kampung Temerloh, Terong, Perak.

Due to very poor knowledge about swiftlet farming the owner trace a friend from Setiawan to recommend someone who can fix his problem.

The contractor told the owner not to enter the BH for 18 months.

This was when I came into the picture.

I was highly recommended to him by his personal friend who happened to be my student and a practicing Doctor.

"If Harry cannot help your BH now one can do any better !!" a phrase used by the doctor.

I took some time to locate the remote small town.

After doing my routine inspection work I told the owner of why those birds were not staying.

Those who stayed were refusing to pay their rental fee.

I told the owner that most BH consultants are not more that a building contractor.

They have very little idea about how to populate the BH they just erected.

The amount of effort allocated to complete the BH was not adequate.

The BH could have at least 300-500 nests if it was properly done from day one, I told him.

The hill top location was the BH strong point and it could have easily pulled all those birds foraging their food around the BH.

Twenty five nests after 18 months into operation is not right to me.

For this particular BH I told the owner that all the three floors were just too bright.

There was not a single partition wall to block those bright light coming from two windows.

The BH looks very much the same as the so many fail BHs I have inspected before.

The sound system were too basic with two simple amplifiers.

One playing the external sound and the other playing the internal sound (24 hrs).

There is no way the internal sound amplifier can last very long, I told him.

The external sound were only played at the entrance hole and nothing along the staircase and inside those nesting rooms.

The number of humidifiers were not adequate.

The nesting planks seems to show some attack from those fungus.

The internal sound playing tweeters were not properly located and too little.

I told him what he should do and I would be very happy to provide my assistance.

After a few glasses of special coffee he told me to mobilize my workers to quickly do the needful.

I have to ask him to let me finish the other two more that are waiting for my services.

I think I am going to have a very busy months for now.

Five BHs needed my services and I am sure there will be a few more soon.

I know if I should complete all these five BHs their nests population will double within 4-5 months,

This objective is not very difficult.

My desire is to triple the nests population within 12 months after revamping.  This will be my exciting challenges.

If I can do this I will be the greatest swiftlet consultant.

Inspected A BH At Tanjung Karang Selangor !!!

Today at about 2:00 pm inspected a three stories BH located somewhere at Tanjung Karang Selangor.

The owner happened to participate in one of my Swiftlet Farming Seminar not long ago.

His main concern was why after 3 years his BH nests population grew very little after touching about 100 nests.

I took about 45 minutes to carry out my investigation and came out with about 10 pages preliminary report about what I found out about his BH.

I told him that his BH design and its orientation were all correct.

The best thing that I indicated to him was the LAL between the top and the middle and also the second LAL were correctly located.

Those birds once they take their dip to the lower floor will go down straight to the bottom.

I told him that there will be a lot of birds staying at the ground floor.

He confirmed my prediction and told me that more than half of those birds were on the ground floor.

Each floor were installed with a number of partition walls however they were just too many.

It should have been more simplified and lesser obstructions, I suggested to him.

The existing doors created by those partitions were a bit too large.

One obvious mistake which I concluded that makes most of those young birds are not returning home after taking their first flight have some thing to do with the BH wetness.

The BH, after 3 years into operation, are too dry and something serious need to be looked into how to make the BH wet or humid.

I suggested two ideas and he promised to look into it as soon as possible.

The BH urgently needed a good number of humidifiers and all the floors and internal walls need to be rinse with cool water.

All the humidifiers must be operated using humidity sensor and set at 85%RH.

The monkey house areas need some additional external sound playing hexagonal tweeter, power tweeters and perhaps two bazookas.

The staircase need to be installed with a number of external sound tweeters to pull more birds to the lower floor.

One of the BH big error was to play the external sounds only around the monkey house and none inside the nesting rooms.

I told him to try installing a number of external sound playing tweeters inside the rooms and focus more at the doors and the VIP room ceiling areas.

There were a bunch more ideas that I suggested to him and I assured him that if he followed my list of recommendations his nests population shall double within 4-5 months.

Within 12 months he might see a 300% increment if he is lucky to follow up with all the things that I told him to carry out.

Overall he was very happy with my report and would like me and my workers to start work like yesterday.

I beg him to let me finish a few more BHs that were recently awarded asking for my services.

If you happen to own a BH with very little nests call me at 017 7551318

Started The Revamp Operation But With Some Hiccup !!!

(New ventilation holes just opened recently)

Started the revamp operation at Bujang BH and went through a number of hiccups.

Nearly all the hardware shops closed to the BH were not in operation.

All were not in the mood to operate during the National day.

The next day managed to assemble nearly all the items required and head back to Kuala Lumpur to arrange for a few more things.

My worker were busy cleaning up the land and re installed some broken pipes.

They helped planting some trees while waiting for raw materials.

Immediately after receiving the ordered items they started work.

First the top floor and after that the 3rd floor (4 stories).

In the mean time I wanted them to open up some air ventilation holes on those walls.

It used to be with no holes on the sides but now each floor has about 18 new ventilation holes.

On the top most floor one of my workers focused on erecting a number of partitions to block those bright light.

At the same time I wanted to VIP rooms to be constructed.

One VIP room at the back and one at the front.

The floor used to be opened with no room.

One thing I observed while drilling those ventilation holes.

The building contractor did not put a layer of styrofoam on the top floor.

They cheated their way and not complying with the specification.

They stop the styrofoam layer at the 3rd floor.

Disgusting behavior.

I will be driving back to Sungai Patani on Thursday and will be at Bujang on the same day.

There is a strong possibility that I will stop and Trong, Perak to inspect a stand alone BH in a Palm oil plantation.

The owner called a few days ago and have a long chat about his failed BH.

Today received another SOS message from a BH owner whose BH is located in Tanjung Karang.

He too seek my professional advise to inspect his BH.

My scheduled my time for him to inspect on this coming Monday September 8th 2014.

Have a look at these pictures taken at Bujang BH:

(Wood frame for VIP room no 1)

(Nesting planks are made of wood)

(New ventilation holes from inside)

(Widen the main door by about 2 feet)

(The second partition frame about to be erected)

Current Project Is As Kpg Bujang, Merbok

(Look at the walls with no ventilation holes)

My workers returned to resume works.

Just mobilized them to Kpg Bujang BH and started with drilling ventilation holes on the walls.

The next day after they arrived took them up to Bujang BH and started work.

This BH is a four stories unit and located in a Palm oil plantation.

While waiting for them to return I cleared the bushes and it seems that the land looks very fertile.

I have decided to plant some fruit trees and perhaps some tubers.

As for the BH my main target will be the top floor and the 3rd floor.

My main aim is to populate the two floors and do up the other floors on a later date.

Formalized the position of partitions and my workers provided the list of items to be purchased.

One main concern which I raised with my workers are those cement made sirip.

How are we going to attach those fake nests and wood crossings?

I let them do the thinking while I will assemble all the materials to complete the BH.

Once this project is completed I might take them to Bumbung Lima BH.

Tentative completion date will be about September 7th 2014.

Sandakan BH Seems To Improve !!!

I text a message to this BH owner in Sandakan asking him about the revamp process.

"So completed?" I asked.

"Completed .. more birds than b4.. but still no nests.  Lots of bird shit on the floor than b4 too" he replied.

I was very glad that he took my visit report seriously and revamp the BH exactly to my requirements.

The only thing that make me a bit not very happy was that there was still no nests inside.

I push him that there was still something that might be causing the trouble: Temperature.

He admitted for not doing anything to monitor his BH temperature.

What I asked him to do was to install a data logger that can capture both the humidity and temperature at 5 minutes interval.

If he can capture these data he can check if the peak temperature is too high and the humidity too low.

In the event the two are prevailing he need to look into blocking those heat from the sun.

I hope he will keep me inform on the progress so that I can advice him on the next step he should do.

There no easy way to populate your BH but some hard work.

Power Supply Interruption Let Me Down !!!

After about one month the Lenggong BH was finally installed with an auto starter.

I wanted to install much earlier however due to the unusual power supply used in the BH I aborted.

The auto starter which was available at the beginning was suitable for a single phase power supply however this Lenggong BH was with three phase.

Since my workers went off for a long holiday I told the owner to hold on until they returned home.

Finally on August 23rd the gadget was put in place and operational by noon.

The BH after just three weeks were showing some good progress however the lighting were not very friendly.

It seems that during raining days the control box will trip nearly every other day.

Once down the BH will not be functioning.

The owner rushed up about four times and every time he drove up he will sms me asking to quickly install the auto starter.

I told him that I need to wait for my workers or maybe he can collect the gadget and arrange with some local electrician to install it.

He declined and wanted me to complete my job.

After getting the installation done and tested a couple of times he was satisfied and told me that hopefully from that installation date he need not rush up every time it trip.

I told him that he was lucky to accept my proposal to install the gadget.

The only bad thing was that he did not mentioned that his BH is with 3 phase power supply.

Some of the new nests found after one month after revamp:

Question: What Is Wrong With My BH Pak Harry !!!

(They only play between 8:00 am until 11:00 am, and not in the evening, why?)

Two days ago while driving to Temerloh, Pahang, I got a call from my representative staying in Tawau Sabah.

He seems to be pretty concern that in the evening those swiftlet simply do not play at his BH monkey house.

They simply swoop in without taking their time at the hexagonal tweeter or at the window.

"Pak Harry every morning from 8:00 am until 11:00 am many will play and play at the monkey house.  Most of them will enter the nesting rooms.  However in the evening the same thing was not happening.  They pass by and straight away zoom into the BH."  he explained.

His question was is that normal?

His BH was a three stories building located in the middle of a huge oil palm plantation.

Before I came for inspection the BH was more like a dead wood.

After following my blog for almost two years, the owner got the gut to call me for my expertise.

I took a flight and inspected the BH.

I was not at all surprised with what were inside the BH.

I took a few minutes to do my assessment and immediately after the inspection I listed all the wrong things found inside and list down the things that they should carry out.

Read this article: Tawau 3 stories BH with 30 nests.

After carrying out all the recommended list of items the nests started to grow and nearly all corners were with nests.

But now he observed something very strange.

Why aren't they playing at the monkey house in the evening?

After assessing his question I told him not to worry too much.

He should look at the nests growth more and not the behavior pattern.

I asked him is the nests growth doing well?

"Yes Pak Harry, the nests numbers are growing steadily after our revamp operation and followed up with your Pheromone application." he replied.

My explanation to him goes like these:

"Since your BH nest growth is steadily growing try not to be overly concerned on the flying pattern.

They must have been searching for food and so much so they do not return home early.

The flying pattern in the morning from 8:00 am until 11:00 am is good enought.

I am sure when they flew in and out of your BH they have already took note of how to enter your BH without the possibility of hitting those walls.

So in the evening they simply zoom straight into your nesting rooms."

He seems to be very satisfied with my answers and thank me for clearing his mind about his BH.

He felt weird that other BH owners experience the normal thing but not his BH.

Call me at 017 7551318 if you have any weird happening at your BH.

If Not Because Of A Break-in This BH Can Triple Its Nests Numbers !!!

(I suspect this BH owner broke into my client's BH and stole the sound that I used)

In one of my article about how after three months three BHs that was revamped one after another doubled their nests within three months.

I came to know that one of the three should have almost triple if not because of a break-in.

The BH that I was referring to was at Tok Dor Dungun Trengganu.

The owner said that some one broke the steel door and took away the amplifiers and the thumb drives.

I have a very strong feeling that the neighbor whose BH was about 150 meters away might be the culprit.

His BH failed miserably the moment this BH was put into operation.

The owner said that he has changed the door to a more solid unit and hope that it will not be repeated.

He keep saying that if there was no break-in the number should have triple.

I told him to continue applying those pheromone and at the same time make sure the sounds are not stopped for any reason.

I remember this BH was using KPOP as its external sound and SuperBabyKing as its internal sound.

I realigned the doors at the tunnel and at the same time erected a few partition walls to darken the floor and create a VIP room on each floor.

The nesting planks were personally cleaned by me and I applied the pheromone to my specifications.

A total of 250 fake nests were installed.

The number of internal tweeters were raised to almost 300 pieces.

The main entrance hole was widened and a hexagonal tweeter installed.

All those left over woods around the BH was burned to prevent any rats making their nests.

The progress of this BH after the revamp operation can be a good guide on what should be done inside any BH.

If your BH has say about 100 nests, you can easily double the numbers within three months.

Just let me have a look inside and tell you exactly what should be done to improve them.

If you wish to talk to the BH owner please PM me at 017 7551318.

I will be very happy to allow you to talk to him on what special things that I did for him.

Another BH With 240% Nests Increase Within 4 Months.

I am getting pretty excited with BH owners called to inform about their revamped BHs results.

This particular person owned 4 BHs.

One in Jenjarum and three in Ayer Putih, Kemaman, Trengganu.

I have been helping him with his upgrading of all the four BHs.

He called to say hello and have something special to inform me.

"Pak Harry the BH at Ayer Puteh now has 600 nests after following your revamp recommendations"  he said.

The number of nests on those fake nests now raised to 80.

This young man uses the 2X pheromone aggressively.

Why I said aggressive is the way he uses those pheromone.

First he started with those canister type.

Soon after moved to the liquid form but now he move one step higher by choosing the double concentration pheromone.

I asked him why he prefer the double concentration?

The effect is more effective.

After two applications they will erect nests on those spots.

His journey in swiftlet farming was not a smooth one but now after using my expertise he became more confident.

"Pak Harry please standby another 5 liters of the 2X pheromone.  I am left with one liter."  he said.

I know he is doing the right thing and his BH progress is the proof.

Try to learn from him and use the 2X concentration pheromone.

He use those 1.5" brush to apply the plank aroma.

A Very Strange Phenomena Found Inside This Temerloh BH !!!

I was invited to visit three BHs in Temerloh Pahang today August 24th 2014.

These BHs seems to be facing some kind of nest population growth problems.

One common similarity of all the three were the use of the same consultant who copied a number of my ideas but went too much with his wild ideas.

It started a number of about three years ago when a so call consultant hailed from Perlis with some title "Doctor" in front of his name.

His skill in convincing people to follow his method is superb.

Nearly 12 locals were dragged into swiftlet farming using his untested ideas.

All the 12 BHs in this small town were closed to empty for a number of years.

I was discovered by one of the group leader and asked to help in reactivating them.

This was what I asked the leader to do.

During my lunch break with him I forward my request on the first thing he should do.

"Can you delete all those teaching from Dr?"

He agreed with this simple idea.

"If you want me to help you with all these failed BHs you need to follow my method."

Let me describe to you what are those strange things found inside the 3 BHs visited.

1) Hanging Aroma Bottles:

The three BHs were with this hanging perfume bottles.  Lots of them and I think they block birds from flying closed to the nesting planks.

The perfume was nothing more than those raw nests added with Pandan leaves smell.

Some of these bottles were wet with the aroma and they become sticky.

What happen after this is that they will actually capture those birds.

One bird was trapped onto the sticky bottle.

(A dead bird stuck to the bottle)

(Hanging bottles)

2) Fake nests made of Clay.

The consultant seems to be obsessed with the deployment of fake nests.

He uses this fake nests made of clay.

Nearly every internal sound tweeter there will be a fake nest on the top and one perfume bottle hung at the bottom.

One very strange thing that I suspect the clay fake nest was the culprit was the number of young bird carcasses on the floor.

One of the three inspected BHs have this strange baby birds drop onto the floor.

There were more than 15-20 carcasses and a few were still alive.

I was asked on the possible reasons why they slipped and fell onto the floor.

My pass experience tells me that they will drop down due to two reasons:

a) When they were running away from predators.  Usually those Geckos.

b) When their parent did not bring food home for at least three days.  They will be so hungry that causes them to release their grip onto those netting of the nest and crawl out of their nest.

The two reasons were not applicable in this BH.  The weather was okay and food were abundant.  There was no gecko found in the BH.

This was when I begin to suspect the clay fake nest.

I took one of the fake nest that were with tenant using it.

It seems that those swiftlet did very little work in creating those netting for their baby to grab on them.

With no netting when those babies wanted to poo they slip down onto the ground.

My suggestion to the owner was to remove all these fake nests.

That might stop the death of young birds.

(Young bird on the floor)

(This was the fake nest that were slippery. Look at the amount of saliva that were used.)

3) Too many internal sound tweeters and fake nests.

The number of internal sound tweeters and those fake nests were just too many.

The owner were forced to use more than 4 units of internal sound playing amplifiers.

The tweeters were not well located and those fake nests were making the tenants lazy to produce their saliva.

One of the BH was with not a single nest but all its tenants were using those fake nests.

My description to the BH owner was "They stay but refuse to pay their rental fee?"

On the part of the BH owner they don't actually understand the basic function of those fake nests and how to remove them once being occupied.