Sunday, December 21, 2008

Applying Love Potion on Revived Farm

Love potions are packed and will be taking them to the North to the 2 revamped farms to be sprayed on the roving & nesting areas to attract birds to come into the farms and stay.



This is the time where new remixed Cd sound is play. The Love Potion Aroma will create an environment that liked by birds especially young birds that seek farm to build their first nest.



The strong Aroma of Love Potion would subdue other smell in the farm especially after some renovations. These included the cement smell, paint smell, etc.



( picture taken from farm that uses Love Potion)


When the appropriate or right Cd sound is played birds would swap down and enter the farm. As they are inside the farm the smell plays an important part. The Aroma of Love Portion would create a smell that similar to old farm that has lots of birds and nests. This makes the birds feel comfortable and making them fly deeper into the farm. From here they would stay and later make nests.


As most of us knew that Aroma is one of the most important factors that we can’t overlooked. Without it, it is would be like adding a negative effect to your farm instead of making it successful.

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Fall from the Roof

I received an email from my reader that one of his friends fell from the roof of a farm after seeing what I did in my blog.

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He stepped on the zinc that has no support at the bottom. The zinc gives way and he went through the zinc and crashed down. He broke his hand and legs. He was lucky to survive.

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"PLEASE DO NOT CLIMB UP THE ROOF IF YOU HAVE NO EXPERIECE or HAVE NOT GONE UP THE ROOF BEFORE" Do Not Copy What I did.

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I had visited countless farms all over Malaysia as well as Thailand and Indonesia. I had gone up different type of structures be it wood , steel or concrete sometimes 5 storey high.

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You have to know the structure well and know where you could stand or put your feet on. At the same time you mind and conscious have be clear when you are on top of the roof.

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This would help in concentration which would prevent you from mistake that could harm you.

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Know what you are doing. If you are unsure don't take the risk.

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Friday, December 19, 2008

Starting Sound on Revamped farms

I will be in the North again this time to start the sound of new revamped farms. Last week I was there to revive two farms of 2 years old.




The major problems of these farms are Temp, sound and flying path. The owner seemed unable to bring down the temperature of the farm that is 33dg. He had spent lots of money yet unable to reduce the temp.



( on top of a zinc roof of a farm)

He had decided to knock down the whole roof and replace it with the concrete slab. Obviously this would cost lots of money. I recommended him some options and assured him that the temp would reduce. He was quite pessimistic about it. I told him, “There are always cheaper solutions. Try this if it doesn’t work then you could always does your concrete slab later".



He called me few days ago and told me “James you are really good. Without major renovation you could bring down the temp. It saved me lots of money. Now the temp is about 27 dg. Fantastic!"



I am bringing with me few CD sounds specially remixed for his farms. Can't wait to see birds swamping down to these totally make over farms.



Bravo!



On Going Cost in farm

As I had mentioned before once you are involved there is no turning back. It is not cheap; firstly you must have a shop lot or a land in the case of if you want to build a stand alone.



The renovation of the farm would be around 20k -100k or more depend on what you want and how you want it to be done. This excludes the cost of the property.



Swiftlet farming is a long term investment. During this time there are hidden costs involved. Most would say that it is a one time investment and there is no other cost involved once the farm started operation. This is true when you strike jack-pot, means that there are no problems in your farm and as the time goes by you see improvement in terms of increasing of bird’s population and nests quantity.



What about if it is the opposite? Then rectification works have to be carried out to revive the farm. This could be a on going process sometimes it may take months or years to get to what you want.



The cost may vary from few hundred to ten of thousand. It depend how bad is the condition. Some may resort to making concrete slab on the roof to reduce the temp. In this case it would be costly. While the minor one would be some partitioning to reduce light, the later one would cost less. And all these depended on the condition of your farm.



Many would sit back and wait but if the initial design or structure that created an unfavorable micro then sitting back and wait would not help at all. So “Do it or loose your investment".

( making additional wall, concrete slab & new position of entrance)


So the most important when you want to get involved or start a Swiftlet farm make sure that the farm that you build is Swiftlet friendly. With this in mind you won't be resorting to many rectification works in future.



Good Luck!

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Monday, December 15, 2008

Sky full of birds

If you were have to build a farm in areas which have lots of birds compared to areas that have few, which would you choose?



Of course the area that has lots of birds. But most who invested into swiftlet farming are more influenced by the shop lots or lands that they had bought prior to this investment.



In other words, this mean that they may had bought the shop lot or land some time ago and have no intention of swiftlet farming until they heard about how lucrative this business is.



From here most would start for the sack of jumping onto the band wagon. Obviously, if someone who is in this business that without principal and just for the sack of making money is invited for consultancy. Then he would surely encourage a farm to be started here and later telling you “the main strategy of successful swiflet farming is being patient and to wait...wait & wait."



( is good to buid a farm around here)


Investment is about time, any investment that has stretched too long is considered lost. If someone tells you that if you invest 100k today the returns is 50 million. What is your response? I am sure you are overwhelming. But you would get it in 100 yrs or 200 yrs, would it be still rational? Of course not, because you won't live to see it because the time is too long.




So time factor is important in swiftlet farming. The faster you could recover your initial investment layout the better it is. The value of Rm1.00 today will not be the same as 5 or 10 yrs from now.




So how can you make sure your investment could result in good returns in the shortest period possible? Of course there are ways, just like any businesses. Know what you are doing, familiar with what you are doing, be observant and make sure you get the right person for advice and to handle the job.



If everything is right and you do it right you may get a good return on invest within 1-2 yrs. If you are unlucky which getting the wrong advice and the wrong people to handle it then it would be a long long wait....or you may not even recover your initial capital investment.



Good Luck!




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Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Temperateture

This morning I received a call from a farm's owner that I had revamped his farm about 2 months ago.



"Hello Taukey! I am very happy kau kau, 2 yrs my farm only got 15 nests and now after 2 months with your advice and visit my farm got 29 nests. Wow I wait 2 yrs only 15 nests now 2 months later got 14 nests.....Your Love potion very Kau Kau.Thank you, thank you, thank you,..............."



Do you know that all temperature in all floors is not the same? The 1st fl, the 2nd n so one.



Given a 3 storey farm the ground floor temperature are lower than the top floor. How do we know there are differences in temperature? Well get a Hygrometer or a Temperature Sensor Gun.



With these tools it will help you to understand the variation of temp of each floor. The often asked questions were "How come all birds stayed on ground floor?” Why all stayed on 1 floor and not other floor?" There are many factors influencing this and temperature is one of them.



( Temperature Sensor gun)

A farm is not a complete farm if it is without the above tools.



Let’s see below;



I was invited to revive a failed farm by a farmer in Taiping. The location of this farm was good. It stood amongst those that are harvesting more than 10kgs above /month. All his neighbors were doing quite ok except him.



His farm was on the top floor of his office/shop which facing the main road. Every evening you could see thousands of birds circling on top of these farms waiting to go in. Sadly only few choose his farm. His farm was done by a consultant from Kelantan.............It was a 2 yrs farm but sadly in such potential area his farm managed to attract birds to build 15 nests. To me I considered this as totally fails.



The moment I entered the farm I could feel that the micros were totally out.



I asked him "didn't you know that you temp is easily above the acceptable level?" His reply "no!"



I asked him do you have a Hygrometer. He replied "what is that? Oh no' then I explained "something that can read the temp". He smiled and says oh I have.



So I asked where is it. He leaded me to the so called roving and showed me. I was surprised, it was those small thermometer which we can get it from the 2 dollar shop, probably cost about Rm 1.00.



When I looked at the reading it was 28dg. I shake it, it still 28dg. So this thermometer has been reading 28dg all the time. I took out my Sensor gun & Hygrometer which I always bring along with me and checked .It was 35dg, I showed to him. I asked, didn't the consultant provide you with the Hygrometer? As usual "No"!



I really pity him, his farm's renovation cost is more than Rm60K and all he got was this.



There are so many problems besides the temp, there are dozens of things to be rectified. I had advised him on all aspect of reviving his poor farm. At the same time a set of CD sound was given to him to replace his current Cd sound and few bottles of Love Potion too.



So never take micros lightly. Most would say "Ai ya! If birds want to stay even the worst Micro they will stay"

This is a wrong perception.

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Monday, December 8, 2008

To the North for JV

Swiftlet farming has taking up lots of my time. A hobby that has turned up as job “24/7". Initially I thought that this hobby could take up little of my spare time but it seemed that now the commitments & responsibilities had doubled up.



I shall be in the North to JV, few farms. The prime bird zone areas which I had always admired that, how could one not making it in such good areas.



I rarely JV because I always believed in commitment & commitment always comes with responsibilities. Once committed I have to take care and making sure the farms will succeed.



Even though it is a JV, I considered it as mine as I would inject whatever knowledge I had acquired & whatever secret I had to be utilized in making the JV farms success.



I had always persisted a JV but from the sincerity and trustworthy and the consistent approach from my readers which take many months and finally I accepted it.



These farms are those which needed revamp. I would be happy to turn a failed farms around rather than farms that are average good.



This created challenges to my skills which enable me to come out with new techniques that would solve problems in farms that never had been done or solved before.



Setting up a farm is easy, anyone could do it.



What about making birds stay in the farms in the shortest period of time after the farm turned on its sound?



Then what about making them making nests in the shortest period of time?



What about increasing the bird’s population? Increasing the nests quantity?



What about creating the best possible nest quality? What about preventing them from migration?



What about best harvesting technique that systematically done and planned? What about .....& hundred of them....



I guess it would be a long list. Therefore all these commitments sometimes make you go cracko!



There are so many things to look into. So it is not easy but some how it could be done.



This is what I love about Swiftlet farming because luck rarely is your side.



Thursday, December 4, 2008

Seminars?

I received many calls from my readers who are new in Swiftlet farming asking should they attend seminars to enrich their knowledge and after that became a successful farmer or after the seminar they can build successful farm.


Well , my answer is after attended seminar it will not guaranteed u that you would have a successful farm. ( 100% guarantee)




(the above are the house swifts, white rump on the back. )



(swiftlets do not have white rump on its back)


If you don't believe me check it out with those who had attended seminars. You will get the answer. Attending seminars is to learn the basic there are no secret blue print farm's design or secret technique revealed. Even it does , imagine how many people had already attended the same seminar and how many had shared the same secret and even if it is a secret, it has no longer considered a secret as too people had knew it.


Well if you want to know the basic of swiflet farming then it is good to attend seminars or to get some certificates which enable you to apply license from the council but then again it would also no guarantee that you would get the license easily.


Most seminars teach the very basic of Swiftlet farming which are : the temp of 26-30dg , Rh 85%, differences of house swifts & swiftlets ..blar..blar..which most you could get it from books, I mean selected good books, not all books are relevant some are too basic and some contradict with the basic theories. Only few selected books are good that actually could enrich you knowledge.


Therefore seminar is good for those who want to know the very basic but beyond that it is all relied on your intelligent and your eagerness to learn and most of all you need a mentor. If you don't have one, look for one. Make sure you find a good knowledgeable one. If your mentor is a half past six then you would ended up the same. " Blind leading the Blind" which is too common now that is why the failed rate of farms is getting higher.


So if you want to attend seminar go ahead but don't expect it to turn you into a SUPER SIFU just after 1 day or a 2 days courses. But there are few who had attend seminars after that thought that they are the King of Sifus........and undertake the construction, design, renovation,etc and ended up having failed farms.


Good luck!

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