The whole Hari Raya festive holidays I was traveling. Visiting farms and solving problems facing by them.
The places I visited were one of the few pioneer Swiftlet farming places in the North of Malaysia. Parit Buntar, which I am sure those who had been long enough in this industry know this place.
(one of the early farms)
The geographical nature of this area is superb with abundant of food. This area covers a huge muddy mangrove area which is the source of food chain for all birds. Therefore it is not surprised there are many Swiftlets here. It is the hunting ground for Swiftlets.
( aerial view of K.Kurau "Superb")
Those towns that surrounded or around this path of food chain also benefited thus many Swiftlet farms were built to capitalize on the growing population of birds. To name a few " Bagan Serai, K.Kurau, K. Gula,etc.
Nevertheless with plentiful of vegetation and birds’ population I am sad to see many failed farms here too. I guess it was due to the lack understanding of how a good Swiftlet farm should be built.
( beautiful muddy mangrove provides Nymphs & Flies)
Therefore with many poor designed farms coming up and this pushes the farms failed rate higher each year. Thus those that are greatly made and designed will continue to record good growth yearly and those that are poorly designed will continue to be the same for many years to come (no nests or after 3 yrs below 20 nests).
So it is common to see good farms with many birds & nests continued to attract even more new birds and failed farms continued to fail badly. (So the rich become richer and the poor become poorer).
I guess we can't escape from the "Law of Survival". The weakest one will soon diminished.
So something needs to be done if one wants to change from poor to rich. Thru my experiences of visiting countless failed farms I sometimes laughed drop dead. You won't believe what I saw.
There are farms that were built and designed by reputable person that did not take consideration of the basic of how a good farm should be build. Some of these reputable persons had built countless farms and had organized seminars.
Many occasions the moment when I walk into the failed farms I already knew who actually built and designed the farm.
As I tell the owner he replied “How come you know?". I replied, it was a pure duplication and there were no extra efforts of adapting the farm's design for that particular area. So how would you expect it to work?
(Sher desperado, no way out, 5 entrance holes showed owner undecided which is the best. Indicated lack knowledge)
I had seen many failed farms that are located in Selangor, Melaka, Johor,etc which done by the same persons which duplicate 100% of it own works and used back the same design or plan whenever they build a new farms in areas like S.Petani, A.Setar, B.Serai,Penang, K.Bharu, Krai,etc. It was a Pure Carbon COPY.
These guys merely have 1 design or 1 plan and use it for all farms that they built. In fact the colors of all these farms are the same. “Not forgetting the Swiftlet Chirping sound"
How can Swiftlet farm is uniform “no way" If Swiftlet farm is uniform then all farms should be 100% success. The 80/20 failed rate ratio had indicated clearly that Swiftlet farm can not be and never be uniform, therefore if your farm is one of them then “good Luck".
Due to this duplication therefore even in good areas like the above there are still many failed farms.
Well this was the reason I was invited to visit failed farms and revive them.
.