Nevertheless , of course having a big budget would indeed helps a lot in term of material use, size of the farm, equipments ,etc but this doesn't mean having a big budget will guarantee a big success.
It is just like the Hollywood movies, some big budgeted movies with heavy weight super star still flopped and while some small budgeted film scored big success.
Stand Alone (S.A) is a big investment obviously the cost involved is very much higher than the those Shop Lot units.
( Far away in remote area)
First of all you need to have a piece of land and getting a good location one for Swiftlet Farming is not easy and most land for this purposes are expensive.
Those that are good and reasonable priced most are belong Malay Reserved which is non transferable to non Bumi. ( can not be sold to non Bumi , so LPPL)
So if you get one you have to pay premium price, that is only the land and yet to include the construction cost on the building.
Often if you buy, the procedure of ownership transfer takes years. And most would wait till everything is properly done and the ownership is confirmed in paper then only they would build the farm. This is to prevent any unforeseen circumstances that may arise during the transfer period.
If you had built the farm during this period if there is complication in the land title and if in any event that it can't be proceeded further , there goes your Swiftlet Farm.
Dealing with Land kinda thing is not easy , in some cases it takes up to 3yrs or more. By the time everything settled 2-3 yrs has gone and the construction works take another 6-8 mths depends on the contractor.
So the time factors involved here. Unless you already had a piece of land which you had bought many years ago or inherited from your ancestor then it is a different case.
The good things about the S.A is the location. If you found a good location that has good vegetation and it is located along the Swiftlet flying path where birds used to fly to look for food, chances are that you might be able to attract them to stay permanently in your farm.
(good vegetation & plenty of food for Swiftlet, but plenty of Predators too)
Of course provided your farm's Micro has to be good. With S.A you don't have to worry about your immediate neighbour that shared the same wall with you doing renovation works on his new farm when you are starting to harvest 5kgs. All those hacking and drilling would affect your birds and they will leave your farm.
Besides that, also no worries of your neighbour "Joker" who knows nothing about farming simply playing "Distress sound " Dure...." in his farm that will make all birds in your farm leave and never came back.
Unlimited farm size, here is where the budget and huge bank account come in. If you are loaded you could have big one any sizes you want.
In long term the S.A is better due to its size and there are rooms to accommodate growing numbers of birds if you could make it.
No sound pollution, so no complain so not summon and so on. If the farm is located in a remote area you could blast your hexagonal tweeter without fear to attract birds from far away.
Best of all the S.A allows you to design the farm that you wanted, which is the most important factors between fail and success farm.
Of course there are set back on S.A as we knew very well nothing is perfect and there are sure to be limitations.
The major problem is with the design , as I had seen many S.A with close to Rm 1 m investment failed. This due to lack of understanding of how a S.A should be built.
The Temp & Rh are big problem in S.A farm. If the owner has lack understanding of what types of material to be used especially the wall of the S.A then controlling of the temp & Rh are difficult.
Also there certain specifications of thickness (design) of wall needed to have a better control of the Temp & RH. This involved the percentage of sand, cement,plaster, type of bricks,etc.
The roofing is also a major problem affecting the S.A. Most would put a water pool on the roof to cool down the Temp often this causes leakage and furthermore when temperature rises the water in the pool becomes hot and making the farm's temp rises instead of lowering it. In order to prevent all these one must have in-dept understanding of the design of S.A.
It is not just as simple as paying some drafmen and you direct him you idea. This is not a movie. Even in movie you need qualify director. Or after you had attended few swiftlets farming seminars and you wanted to call the shot. This often heading for disaster.
There are hundred more problems that might effect the S.A if the design is not done properly which I can't finish writing here.
( A Stand Alone nearer to town)
There are other problems like Owl, eagle, rat, snake,lizard, etc that the S.A has to face. Being built in a remove area or a good vegetation area mean lots of green. This also means plenty of other predators.
Good vegetation not only attracts the Swiftlets but also attracts predators as well because of the food chain and ecology system.
All those predators would affect your farm, getting rid of them is not easy . One of them is the lizard. This is not those that we often seen in our house. It is those long & huge one about 9-12" in lenght.
We called it tokek in bahasa.
Once the got into your farm your birds population will not increase as they like eating birds egg. As lizard will grow in your farm and your birds population will reduce. I shall take about this in my write later (Predator).
If your farm is located in the remote area electricity is problem. Without it there are lots of thing couldn't be done, water pump , sound system, mist, humidifier, cctv,etc. Of cos you could use a generator or huge battery this involve lot of maintenance and installing solar system is costly.
Burglary, yes for S.A. If your farm is located in the remote area and when it is harvesting many kgs. Even with the state of art alarm system the burglars still break in because they knew by the time you reached your farm they already harvested all your nests and having coffee at some other place.
They might even hack a hole thru the wall instead of climbing in. Anyway there are nobody around. The alarm system may scare away the birds but not the burglars.
So there are always advantages & disadvantage of building a Stand Alone Swiftlet Farm.
If you understand the limitations as well as the advantages & disadvantages it would be easy for you to handle it if any problem arises.
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