( all nothing but Swiftlets farms)
( all shops converted to Swiftlets Farm)
(from 2 storey to 3 storey)
(100% all Swiftlets farms)
( Back to Back all farms. You have to be skillful in order to compete in such environment)
(2 farms sandwiched a 2 storey farm)What if your farm is located in such area with 100% all shops converted in to Swiftlet farms. Some even built an additional floor on top to make it 3 storey.
If you have a farm here what would you do? Leave it as it is and wait or do something.
I was invited by Mr.L from Taiping to have a look at his farm of 3 years. It has been doing quite ok, there are few hundred nests in His farm but Mr.L wants more improvement.
The Location not bad but too many farms around. Those that stand out amongst all would attract all birds. It is a winner takes all situation and there will be no such thing as 2nd or 3rd place as far as Swiftlet farming concerned. Either you make it or don’t.
You wouldn’t be surprised that farms next to yours are having few thousand nests and yours only have 10 pieces.
So how should you go about it? Let’s look at the main criteria to be competitive in such area.
The Farm’s design has to be perfect to accommodate the way birds fly.
1) The partitioning and rooms in farm have to be located at appropriate place. (Exit and entry have to be accordant to birds flying path. ( most pictures on the web that I saw didn’t take into consideration of this)They want to create a good room but failed to understand its purposes.
2) Good positioning of entrance hole and inter hole. The size should be appropriate to the ratio of the size of the farm. (not based on what we wanted but what’s birds wanted) It also has to be located at a good position.
3) The types and number of tweeters especially internal ones.( can’t be simply installed which I see on the web most are wrongly installed)
4) The number of tweeters should be at optimum level not over load to few hundreds. This would create confusion to the birds. I called it “frequency crash” (means, there are so many tweeters we can’t hear anything except loud chirping sound. This confused the birds.)
5) Frequent use of Good aroma in farm ( Love Potion)
6) Temperature and humidity have to be constant monitored
7) Understand the light density in farm. Never too dark nor too bright
8) Make sure there is no movement of air in farm.
9) No exhaust fan please
10) No potable fans in farm please.
11) Formation of nesting planks (a good formation would attract birds to make nest fast).
12) Good type of nesting planks that resist fungus ( you don’t need to change them Later)
13) All walls should have good insulation from heat.
14) Good external and internal sound. (Don’t get those that already being used by many people. Your sound should be unique and stand out so birds would stay in your farm)
15) All pools should have water proofing compound. Many farms have leakage problem.
16) Time the humidifier according to the season. ( 15min per session is good enough)
17) Good Pest control
18) Understand the use of PVC Vent pipe and the number needed in farm
19) Understand the use of every each type of material to build farm eg: sand brick, clay brick, grc, etc. So that you know what is good for what purposes.( their advantages and disadvantages)
20) The ratio of cement, sand, etc to create cooler walls.
21) Never use or follow a same design that has been used by many when designing a farm. Every farm has it uniqueness. (never buy farm design over counter they might be hundreds of people using the same design your farm would lose it uniqueness)
22) Portioning of the external sound tweeters. Where it should be fixed( not all must be fixed at the entrance hole as claimed by many)
23) Type of external Tweeters. Some external tweeters attract more farmers than birds. When installed it doesn’t attract many bird .This is due to its frequency that is out of the range of birds hearing capability which I Had mentioned before. These types of tweeters have very loud sound to attract the buyer but not birds.
24) Where to put and install the humidifier
25) What type of humidifier is appropriate
26) What type of Amp to be use? Acoustic, instrumental, vocal? All have different frequency responses.
27) ….
28) ….
29) …
There are so many more things you have to do and observe in order to be the best in such area. The list can goes up to more than 500 perhaps more .I guarantee, you can’t learn all this from books and seminars. No matter how comprehensive the seminar or book are. I would bet Rm 10.00 with Rm 10,000.00 with anyone who dares to take the challenge that a Seminar and Book could cover all these.
Let’s get back to Mr.L case. He concerns that some of his neighbors are using Sterss sound to attract birds. Those were the ones that are in desperate position to get birds into their farms. This indirectly affected his farm too.
I told Mr. L, go and talk to your neighbors and educate them Stress sound it for testing and it is not for external use.
While we were there fortunately came a farm’s owner he happened to know. His farm was located few shops away. He also complained about the farms that use Stress sound. We spoke for awhile and he told us he knows this guy who are using the Strees sound. He promised to speak to him.
I try to teach Mr.L as much as possible to increase the nests in his farm but I don’t know how much he could observe and learn.
He appreciates what I had done and asks me to give him a private tuition on Siwftlet farming the later week. I laughed ha ha…, and I said I love to do so but I don’t have the time Mr.L. because I have many on going projects of building new farms for my readers.
After that we went for dinner and later I headed for Kuala Kangsar.
Good Swiflet Farming All!