Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could attend to your swiftelt farm whenever you wish or every evening having a cup of coffee lying down in a hammock and watching the birds flying into the entrance at dusk? In fact you could do that every day if you have a Bh like the picture above.
I guess this is what most people wanted. A dream home and a dream Bh side by side. You don’t have to worry about thief.
Building a standalone Bh deep inside plantation area is not easy to manage. We have talked about predators like Owl, bat, tokek, etc. What about thief? What about maintenance? Often when it’s too far away, where you have to drive few hundred km to visit your bh the hassle would tired you out and eventually you would give up maintaining the Bh.
At the beginning when the urge and the interest was still high. One will even travel to the peak of a mountain just to have few minutes of glimpse of birds returning home. Thereafter few month, few years, eventually when the interest dies they will start to complain about the distance between their houses and Bhs.
Useless the Bh performed extremely well having ten of kg of nests per month otherwise the owner would drag his feet every time when his wife asks “When are you going to check or Bh (our investment)? No need to check so often lah anyway only got 2 nests.”
Having a Bh located far away is almost equivalent to having a failed farm. Because you really drag your feet to visit it. You can’t care for them as often as those that just need 10 minutes drive.
So when you choose a Bh location make sure you considerate everything from birds populated area to distance from where you live. Travelling is a taxing thing unless you are fully retired and enjoy travelling.
One of the examples was a Bh of a friend of mine. He lives in Klang and he has 2 Bhs in Kelantan. He travels there once every 3 weeks. It is an 8 months old farm. Now he travels once every month. He complained to me it was very taxing.
He told me there was one incident after coming back from Bh visiting at Kelantan. His neighbor called him up and said” Mr. Lee, I can see light from your Bh ventilation hole at night”.
My friend forgotten to switch off the light on the ground floor when he leaves. So now he has to drive all the way back to Kelantan to switch off the light.
He doesn’t have relatives there or someone he could trust to hold the Bh’s keys for him.
So when you want to build a Bh think thoroughly. The Location and the distance you live are important. No point of having a Bh in a Good location but you are unable to attend to it.
Good Swiftlet farming All!