The September 10th, 2011 Swiftlet Farming Seminar Went Perfectly !!!

The one day seminar went very well yesterday at One World Hotel in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.

A total of 30 participants attended and my assistant told me that most of them were glued to their seats. I don't know how they went without going to the bathroom.

We have very little hiccup except the bus that was scheduled to pick us up for the BH visit did not turned up as planned.

The hotel Management managed to get six limousine taxis to shuttle all the 30 participants to Kepong KIP BH.

During the visit the BH was pretty wet and there were at least 10-15 birds inside when the door was opened (at noon time).

Many participants indicated that they have never entered a BH prior to this.

"Pak Harry, this was the first time I entered a real BH and and thank you for arranging such a once in a life opportunity. I think you are the only one who include such a wonderful trip."

This time we have an Amoh from Australia (Darwin).  He is married to an Indonesian and have a couple of lands in Lombok, Indonesia.

"Pak Harry I will start work on my BH in December 2011.  You will be hearing from me then."

Also for the first time a Thai swiftlet farmer attended my seminar.

It was a wonderful day and I managed to covered nearly all those topics that will make my participant a different person.

"Very well delivered and I learned so much.  Thank you Pak Harry.  You are so generous with all the information needed."  A comment made by one of the participant.

Those of you who plan to own a BH please try not to miss my next Seminar scheduled this November 5th 2011.

You will minimize making mistakes after listening to my papers.  Trust me !!!

Starting A Nursery For Figs Trees, The Insect Generator !!!

This might be something out of the norm but I think it is worth the effort.

Yesterday while taking a short break with my Indonesian workers at Bukit Pelanduk BH I was curious about the banana plantation and its surroundings.

I asked my worker to take me for a short tour.

To my surprise I found a few very interesting things that were hidden at the perimeter of the plantation.

First was a sizable fish pond that have at least 3,000 cat fish.  I was taken to the pond and we did some fishing.

Those cat fish were a hungry lot and they eat nearly anything that can be eaten. Sometime even the fish hook with no bait on it.

I caught one fish every one minute.  What a wonderful experience.

Second more interesting finding was a row of young figs trees planted on the elevated soil that prevent sea water from entering the plantation.

In the beginning I was not very sure but I got hold of my partner and he admitted that he planted those trees himself.

"Pak Harry, I read about Figs trees insect generating capabilities from your blog and  quickly planted them around my BH.  They are now about 1 years old now and about 30 trees.  I think we should plant more, what do you think?"

What he did was to start a nursery planting each tree from their ripe fruits.

I told him that was very unusual and he now will be my nursery partner.

"Pak Harry you go and get the ripe fruits of any figs tree types and I will grow them for your next project."

This makes me realized the potential of getting others to help you out with what ever your wanted to use for your BH.

Most of us tend to be focusing more to the inside of our BH and give very little attention to the outside of it.

After reading this article, please view those video clips,  you might want to do a bit of  thinking about what can be done on the outside, I mean the BH surroundings.

To those who owned BHs with excess land, my sincere advise to you is to plant these figs trees to help in generating insects in a more natural method.

It has dual methods in generating those small insects.

First will be those figs warps that breed inside the fruits during the fruit's tender age.

The female figs warps will bore a small hole and squeeze herself into the fruit and lay her eggs into a special capsule that were specially produced inside the fruit. While moving from one capsule to another they will pollinate the flowers. These eggs will soon turned into maggots and later transformed into warps inside the capsule. The young warps prior to coming out of the open will collect enough pollen for them to carry to another fruit.






Figs tree will produce no flower. The so called flower inside the fruit. The only way to pollinate the flower is to have some insect that will enter the fruit flesh and pollinate inside.

A very interesting plant and insect working together for their survival.

The second method is when the fruit become ripe and falls to the ground.

The moment it turned red and soft the fruit will attract those fruit flies. They come in thousands and lay their eggs on the soft flesh which are decomposing.

These fruit flies are exactly the same insects that you breed using those insect generating powder.

Using insect generating powder is a bit too tedious and you need to replace the soup every 10 -14 days. Well I am not trying to discourage you from doing this method but look at it as your short term measures.

You need to spend about 50-60 Ringgit per mixing plus a labourer to help to clean and pour the soup. Once you stop doing the mixing the whole thing will stop producing.

While the Figs trees planting technique is more like a long termed method of generating insects for your BH as compared to those insect barn method. It is more self generating and less human intervention.


Hmm .... may be you should combine the two.  Use the insect generating barn technique during the early period and once the figs trees are matured and starts to fruits you can stop the early activity.

The figs trees will fruit nearly a whole year round and if you can plant a few species the fruiting time will be continuous.

Much better if you have a lot of them.  Per acre you might want to plant about 50 to 60 plants.  It will be very effective if you create water ponds and plant these Figs trees on the elevated walls of the ponds.

Come and visit my Bukit Pelanduk BH and see how we are going to turn a part of the Banana plantation into water ponds laced with Figs trees around the ponds.

There will be at least 3 different species of Figs trees.

If you are not sure where to plant just give me a call so that I can help in giving a small advise.

I will be having a number in my new nursery soon at Bukit Pelanduk.  I will also turn the land around the BH to be a figs plantation with a couple of fish ponds.

Call me at 017 755 1318 for any help.

Already collected a few ripe fruits this morning from a couple of trees in Kuala Lumpur and will pass them to my Nursery Partner.

Remember this whole thing is just my idea and it is not compulsory for your to consider it. As far as I can remember I am the only one who encourage the use of Figs Trees in swiftlet farming.

Already got interested blog readers who wanted to book a few queen of all trees (Figs):  1) Mr Adnan Khamis 10 trees (KL) 2) Kelvin Kong 3 trees 3) Adrian 10 trees

Saturday Swiftlet Farming Seminar Is On Schedule !!!

Take note that this Saturday Swiftlet Farming seminar is on and confirmed at One World Hotel, Petaling Jaya, Selangor.


We have people from all over the place like Australia (first time), Thailand (first time),Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia. The Australian is an Amoh or white. The second white person involved in swiftlet farming.  Before this was Mr Guss of Holland !!!


Detail of function room is as follows:


Name of Seminar Room (s):  Sunflower & Lavender


Located at : Level C, One World Hotel (5 Stars), Petaling Jaya, Selangor.


Parking: Fixed at RM 5 for whole day.  You need to validate your ticket.


Registration: 8:30 am (Please bring your seminar payment slip). Collect your seminar materials during the registration.


Seminar will start at : 9:00am


1st tea break at: 10:30 am.


Site Visit to Kepong KIP BH:  11:30 am. ( Face mask and plastic bags to cover your shoe will be provided)


Lunch at Main Coffee House: 12:30 pm until 1:30pm.


Restart the afternoon session: 1:30pm


2nd tea break : 3:30pm.


End of Seminar : 5:30pm plus minus.


Remember to bring your thumb drive to copy the presentation materials. Also a baseball cap to cover your head when you enter the BH.


Bring some extra money for you to purchase some swiftlet farming books, test gadget, BH gadgets and sounds.  I don't take credit card. Sorry


So far we have a total of 28 confirmed participants and 12 more to reach the maximum number of 40.


Those who have not registered try not to miss this opportunity.  Call 017 755 1318 for more details.


My next Seminar might be in November 2011.


Remember this comment made by a Medical Doctor (He is attending this September seminar for his second time. I think he is addicted to my seminar.):

"Hi Pak Harry,

Just wanna  say thank you to you. Congratulation! 

It is a wonderful course about Swiftlet farming. 

I heard many participants said your course is the best among all the courses they ever attended!

DrG"

Insect Superlure Is Now In Concentrated Formula !!!

Remember about those insect luring solution?

To reduce the weight and packing container size, the inventor finally decided to supply the Superlure in concentrated form.

It is no longer 5 litres but only about 1.5 litre.

All you need to do is to add about 3.5 litre of plain water and activate it with four table spoons of plate washing liquid soap.  Use those lime added plate washer soap please.

Once the three components are added shake them well.

Once that is done your Superlure is now activated and ready to attract those insects.

The best method is to spray to a medium size tree about 10-12 feet high with lots of leaves.  You can automate the spray so that it will spray at around 7:30pm.

By night fall those night flying insects will be all over the leaves of the bait tree.

The other method is to apply to a piece of cloth, yellow coloured, and hang it near the entrance window or on the roof top closed to the entrance window.

Once activated the insects will be all over the cloth and this will attract those swiftlet to come nearer to your BH entrance hole.

The cost per container or about 1.5 litre is RM90 ex Kuala Lumpur.

Please have a look at some of the insects captured very recent.

Aerosol Cannister Filling Machine !!!

Just wanted to show all my blog reader how the filling machine looks like.

I happened to be invited to visit a factory specializing in packing liquid product into aerosol cannisters.

While inside the factory I took a photo of the machine that was used to fill the aerosol cannister with the "Super Pheromone" mentioned in my previous article.

I told the factory owner that the machine is nothing new to me.

My background is Mechanical Engineering and I used to be a factory manager at Johnson & Johnson located at Jalan Tandang, Petaling Jaya for more than 5 years.

During those five years I was looking after a manufacturing plant with 300 workers.

I remember producing those Johnson & Johnson baby products such as shampoo, lotions, oils, powders, toothbrush, soap and etc.  In addition we also produced sanitary napkins such as Sanita and Stayfree.

During the 3rd year I was posted to Sau Paulo, Brazil for almost 2 months to learn the basic in running a baby napkin manufacturing machine. Brazilian girls were gorgeous. Hmmmmm......

On the way to Brazil we stopped at Taiwan and on the way home at Spain Johnson & Johnson factories.

What surprised me most in Brazil was when all of them were speaking Portuguese while all other countries around them were using Spanish.

In Taiwan, I was very fascinated at the high speed machine producing those sanitary napkins.  Beside that those Taiwanese drinks beer better than water.

Anyway I learned a lot of things about manufacturing operation and enjoyed every minute of my time at Johnson & Johnson.

The most difficult was to handle human being.

It was much easier to look after those machines. Trust me !!!

Super Pheromone Aerosol Spray To Spray On Your Nesting Planks !!!

(Note: Try to double click on all the pictures in this article so that you can get a clearer view.)

Just imagine having an aerosol spray cannister that after spraying on the nesting plank can help to induce those wild birds to start building their nests.

The name of this special spray is "Super Pheromone" produced by a local Chemist and canned in Negeri Sembilan.

Something new and have yet to be introduced into the market.

This Super Pheromone spray is produced by a Malaysian Chemist and scientifically packed into 150 millilitre aerosol cannister that can allow you to use as many as 50 sprays (approximate).

They are locally produced (Malaysian Made) and not imported from the neighbouring countries.

I was given the special privilege to visit the canning factory (the factory where the pheromone were packed)  and satisfied that they are not imported.

The inventor indicated that he has just finished testing the product in more than three BHs and all the three shows positive results.

I was given a number of pictures to be shown to new users and I am sure there is something interesting for all BH owners to try.

The criteria to ensure a 100% success will be:

1) Your BH must have a good number of birds already staying but not making their nests.

2) Try to apply the spray in VIP rooms or an area where they birds prefer to stay (lots of bird shit spots on the floor).

3) Chose about 10 to 20 spots to in each room. Try to select on straight planks and not corners.

4) Make sure the planks selected are cleaned and free from dirt and fungus.

5) Spray the first layer of the liquid about 10inches to 12 inches in length.

6) Once done spray on the same spot for the second layer.

7) Chose the next spot and do the same.

8) Mark the sprayed areas with sticky paper marker (one sided).

9) Try to check for saliva markings after two or three weeks.

10) If there are makings made please do not disturb or spray any more of the spray liquid.

11) If there were no marking, spray one more time with two layers.

The success of this newly formulated pheromone is subjected to the number of birds inside the BH.

It is water based and packed in aluminium aerosol container to prevent any rust.  They are not toxic to human being but for haven sake don't spray into your mouth !!!

The higher the number of birds inside your BH the higher the chances of luring them to start laying their nest markings on the sprayed planks.

The markings will looks like these pictures (taken after 10 days of application):


One of the most interesting application of this product is to induce those swiftlet to build their nests on the straight planks.  If they do so the nest shape (180*) will fetch a better and higher price.

You can also spray onto those fake nests your installed.  The fake nests will be immediately be tenanted (no promises but please try).

If your birds refused to occupy an area in your BH, you can try to move them by spraying this aroma using the same technique.

The product is very new and have yet to be launched.

For the first phase we have about 30 cans to be tested in Peninsular Malaysia, Cambodia,Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand BHs.

Those who are interested please write to Harry at harryswiftlet@yahoo.com. Title: Super Pheromone Spray.

You can view and purchase the product at trial price during the September 10th, 2011 seminar at One World Hotel.

You will be entitled for a maximum of three cans at a trial price (to be advised via phone 017 755 1318).

After the trial of 30 cans the market price will be firmed for future usage. (Balance only 28 cannisters).

All you need to do is to make a visit report of its effectiveness every time you enter your BH and see if the sprayed areas have any markings.

If possible you need to send photos to harry's email address.  I need the length of time being applied and how many markings were found at each location.

Those who have specialized camera installed, I need the video clips that shows how the birds stay at the sprayed location and their behaviour pattern.

Your contribution will help in reformulating the content of the spray composition, if required.

If one cannister can produce say 1 nest, your cost of purchasing one can is paid for.

Just imagine if all the 20 selected spots are successful?  Yes you will increase your BH value by RM 20,000, assuming that each nest is equivalent to RM1,000.

If after using for more than 3 times and there is no response, you need to let me come and evaluate your BH problems.

There must be something wrong with the area you are targeting.

I am looking forward to a satisfactory results and if this spray works, we are getting nearer to finding the curing all our BHs.

Will continue with the test and will post any comments that I received.

I might want to create a new blog dedicated to this pheromone spray.

Best of luck to all who volunteer to test the latest product on the shelf.

Take note, I am looking for distributors in Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

All you need to do is to commit to buy a minimum of 2 boxes of 30 cannisters per box.

If you are interested write to me with a short presentation about yourself and your company.

Once you qualify I will provide the terms and conditions and ceiling price for selling the product in your country.

For more details and test reports please visit this new dedicated blogsite:

superpheromone.blogspot.com

A Tobacco Leaves Drying House Turned Swiftlet Farm !!!!

A tobacco leaves drying house, like a smoke house, turned into a BH.

This happened in Raub, Pahang.

I remember visited and wrote an article about this place.  The owner wanted my opinion about the location and I told him, why not.

I conducted the bird call test and there were more than 150 birds responded.

Since the building was no longer in used I told him that it will be very minimal to convert the idle building.

Showed him a bit of ideas what to do and within less than two months he went ahead and got the BH ready.

"Pak Harry, I need all the best sounds that you have and let me try my luck"

I was again ask to drop by and saw the BH in operation and I am sure you would like to see some photos taken.

The good lesson here is that any building that can provide the right micro habitat and located below the birds flying path can be used to be a BH.

Have a good look at these pictures:

Something That I Wanted To Share With You !!!

If you have the chance to enter many birdhouses, you will learned and observed lots of strange things.

Some are very beneficial but some can be very scarry.

I have gathered so much from every BH visit and I am 100% sure there are still more things to be discovered.

From my vivid recollection I remembered, in general,  those birds loves to stay inside rooms.

Inside these room they prefer to be build their nests in the darkest area and near to those walls.

Their preferred choice are the 90* corners.

If there are fake nests they will also capitalise on them.

In many instances their nests are on or closed to those tweeters.

Main target are the internal sound tweeters.

Some just above it, some at the side and some at the back of it.

The only strange thing that I begin to realize is that they have less preferance to build their nests closed to the external sound tweeters.

If you keep your eyes opened you will observed what I have many times observed.

So if you entered your BH please try to check on this strange phenomena.

Those areas where there are lots of bird shits below them with external sound playing will have little chance of nests but those playing with internal sound tweeters will eventually resulted in nests.

First there will be bird shit and soon, about two to three months or so you will start seeing some feathers on the spot.

The moment the feathers are on the floor you will soon find that there will be some kind of nest markings above the spot.

If you are lucky the marking will eventually turned into nest.

The nest making process is nearly the same and you will see this over and over again.

Remember, the chance of having nests is higher if the birdshit is found below the internal sound tweeters as compared to external sound tweeter.

There must be some reason for this but i know for the fact that the internal sound are usually played much longer as compared to the external sound.

Another important thing is that the internal sound, babyking or superbabyking, are mainly the sound of mating and baby sounds.

It wan be that these two sounds accelerate the couple to wanting to start breeding.

While the external sound is just to get them excited to be near to.  Once the sound is switched off they loose their concentration and will normally switched to the internal sound tweeters.

Another BH Improved After Meeting Me In Kuala Lumpur !!!

It seems that the Vietnamese are gaining following my advises and they harvest more birds in the sky.

The last was from Mr Dat whose BH is somewhere in HCMC and today another Vietnamese name Ngoc, sending his report from Danang.

Read this email just received:

Dear Sifu,

I attach the file of my BH record yesterday 29/08.

After I attended your seminar and learning with site visits in July 2011, I went back home and spend 1 week on revamping.

I could not revamp as much as I wanted since there are some birds already in the BH.

My BH was a disaster created from a bullshit contractor from HCM city (6 birds for 6 months)

The bird number that I calculated exactly before revamp was 26birds with one 90* Nest (this number due to my research on your blogsite before I attend your course).

Today, after 6 weeks, I already increased the number of birds stay in BH to nearly 100 birds. I am not sure how many Nest inside because I dont want to go inside to disturbing new tenants coming everyday.

In general, I do increase a big percentage of birds staying about 300% percent in 6 weeks.

I do admire myself and I think I am very lucky to meet you and you are a great teacher.

My entire family want to say THANK YOU to you. 

I attach a record to you have a look that my birds back home in the late afternoon.

Currently in my hometown 6:30PM is totally dark. There are 3 time parts in the clip: 5:30-5:37-6:00. The birds mucking around BH to play and get inside one by one.

Spectecular and I am very happy to know that all my affords in sharing my knowledge is useful.

To those who happenned to face similar problems please get your self the right advise and accumulate more knowledge on how to improve your BH.

My best advise is to attend my Seminar organised once every two months.

If you are wise you should arrange for a kind of tour after the seminar for two to three days.

I can guanrantee you that your effort is worth every penny.

Call 017 7551318 if you need any further advise for the arrangements.

Pollinating Insect In A Banana Plantation !!!

Remember the sick BH in Bukit Pelanduk which I was asked to take over and nursed to better health?

It was into operation about 1.5 years ago and no nest at all.  The owner have decided to call it a day and hand over to me to nurse it back to normal.

The stand alone, about 25 feet by 80 feet and 2 stories high, is in a 2.7 acres of Coconut & Banana Plantation.

The owner indicated that the soil was a bit salty and he aborted the plantation of dragon fruit and switched to Coconut (long Term) and Banana (short term).

The coconut trees were still very small and the banana seems to be flourishing.

The first batch is growing very well and they have just started fruiting.

It seems that those swiftlet hover over the plantation nearly one whole day and more in the late evening.

I was wondering what is so special with banana plantation to those swiftlet.

I later discovered why.

Those fruits bunch with flower seems to attract lots of those small black coloured  bees that extract nectar and pollen.

At the moment nearly all the banana trees are with the young fruit bunch and no wonder those birds are all over the top of the plantation.

Have a look at these video clips and photos:

One of the video clip show you that there was a praying mantis that captured one of the bee.

What a life.

We thought that life is hard to be human but what about these insects?

No matter where they go there are always predators.

I would say that banana can be one of those trees that you can plant around your BH.  One thing for sure they will not be growing taller than your two stories BH.

They are easy to look after and very easy to plant.

The best is the Berangan and Emas.

If you need any help to get the seedlings or how to prepare the land let me know so that I can arrange a meeting with the land owner who started the plantation.

CCTV Camera Can Be Your Best Research Tool !!!

Can you imagine having a mobile phone where you can view and zoom your camera on the spot?

Just look at this picture number 1 and compare with the second picture number 2:

 Picture Number 1

Picture number 2

This is a real picture shown to me by one of my blog reader whom I recently met.

After a few short explanation he showed me life pictures of the birds hanging at the nest.

Look at this video clip:

It was simply unthinkable but nowadays with so many new gadgets available in the market, nothing is impossible.

My point here is that it is much easier nowadays to carry out research and you need no longer to stay inside your BH to study your swiftlet.

The above set of camera is only RM 2,800 (the camera only) and if you wanted to know more let me know.

I have yet to capture a picture of it but will get it to all of you soon.

One more point to add is that the owner can switch the camera off and on from his mobile phone.

As such you will not disturb the birds all night long.

Fascinating and what more can be spoken......

My Very Precious Visit Report !!!

I remember very well when I visited a BH in Vietnam and after which I wrote about 19 pages report with various sketches on what they should do.

The report was well received and implemented in stages.

At that moment the number of birds were less than 5 but now the result, after carrying out my recommendations, is outstanding.

I am very proud to have help the owner with his BH sickness problem and I hope the remedies I recommended will be useful for others too.

Just read this email just received this morning (August 30, 2011):

Dear Sifu Harry,

I and my parents are very pleased to have that precious report from your visit to our BH. Each time i come to maintain my BH, i always arrange to implement some of your recommendation, such as hanging perfume garden, auto-spray aroma system, hexagonal tweeter, chandelier, fake nests, etc..  

After two months, the swiftlet population in my BH increase significantly.

Now we have about hundreds of birds stay in my BH. Today i wanna send you a video captured from my camera to show you what i have now. 

Your knowledge, as well as your experience in this field is admirable. 

Thanks for your contribution to us as well as this industry.

You can see the video in the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_eMAdCCH_M

 

Thank you and best regards,

--
Dat

Dual Entries BH At Bumbung Lima, Kepala Batas !!!

While having a weekend at my home town, Sungai Patani kedah, I was invited to view a newly operated BH on a piece of land in the middle of a padi field.


This particular owner indicated that his BH was empty for almost 1.5 years and he needed some opinions what can be wrong with his BH.


I was very honoured to be given the opportunity and I was right on time at Bubung Lima, Kepala Batas very early in the morning.


"Pak Harry please wait for us at the bridge and will take you there."


On the way managed to snap a few BHs in operation.


The one that attract me most was this school look alike with dual entries, the top entry and the side entry.


The right side on the roof top is the side entry and to the left is a top entry.  


The color used seems to be like a school.




Just beside the road there was this unit that seems to have more birds as compared to the rest.


Its monkey house has at least three entrance holes and all were in the middle of the walls.


It has a very effective sound and the birds were flying in and out all the time when I was at the side of the road waiting for my client.

Have a look at them and the unit I was asked to inspect.


Operated about 1.5 years ago with not a single nest.


What do you think went wrong?


The BH belongs to two owners.  One of the owner has a number of BH with successful results.


How come this one was not doing well?

More spice to this delima was that they have a similar sized unit about 10 meters away.


I think it was in a similar situation.


What do you can be wrong to these two units?


The more you enter these kind of BH the more you understand why many BHs failed to get those birds to enter the house.


The key issue is the understanding of what those wild birds wanted and refuse to before you design your BH.


Keep learning and one day you will understand what I am trying to say.