(Picture taken during day time. Many birds playing inside the nesting area of a new farm.).
The number of birds that enter your farm and play at your nesting during day time would indicate how potential your farm is going to be in near future.
Often for new farms during the day time it is hard to see many birds playing inside the nesting areas other than at outside of the farm at the Pooling area (external). Most of the Swiftlets are attracted to the new sound from the new farm few would try to enter farm but exit immediately in few second. The adaptation process period would takes couple of months before they would get use to it. The longer period they take to adapt to it, it shows the farm has flaws in its design.
Rarely you would see Swiftlets fly deep inside the inner part s of new farm perhaps you would see one or two flying erratically the moment they see you off they go heading for the exit.
Go and visit your farm during the day and observe the number of birds that come and play. See how many did fly inside and play at the nesting areas. If you see many of them inside the nesting areas this shows good sign.
Some Sifus may advice not to visit new farm for at least 6 months. They claimed that the visiting would frighten the birds. So if there are leakages, wiring problem, etc then you would have wasted 6 months.
I definitely don’t buy such advice. For new farm the first 6 months is most important. Any problem arises should be rectified immediately otherwise birds won’t stay. This is the most crucial time where I apply Aroma (Love Potion) to create an environment that liked by birds, tuning the sound and checking the wiring and making sure the farm is fully operational without set back. With everything in proper Swiftlets will take a shorter time to get adapted to the new farm.
I would visit the new farm every 2-3 weeks once. Later on 3-4 weeks once for maintenance. It is an ongoing thing that we must not neglect.
Good Farming All!