(Movement of the Sun changes from Jan to Dec that affect the Micro of Bh.)Some wanted their Bhs to face South and some preferred it to face North, sighted this is the best way because the Sunlight doesn’t hit directly to the large portion of the wall.
Secondly many prefer the Bh Entrance hole to face East so that the morning Sun would work as a morning call to wake the birds up. If this is the case and if the birds would have to rely on the morning Sun to wake them up then those who suggested this is really silly.
Let’s not simply listen to what other had said, use your own common sense that God has given you unfortunately most of us never use them.
The direction of the Sun which rises from East to West will never change. But our Earth circling the Sun which tilts a certain degree from Jan to Dec each year will affect the direction of Sun shines toward the Earth. As we are at the Equator line therefore in certain months the Sun direction would move left to right.
For such instances no matter how you place your Bh all sides are tended to be exposed to the strong Sunshine.
The only thing you could do is to have a good wall insulation that prevents strong heat from affecting the internal micro.
One layer of brick, Sand bricks and so on can’t withstand the UV ray. It could penetrate thru the wall. 3 hours of direct exposure is all it takes to make the whole Bh hot.
Those Bhs that are not cemented or plastered, or cemented only one side will have this problem. Though some may argue that there are quite numbers of successful Bhs that are using one layer of brick. Well if they would have used double layer brick I am sure their harvests would have gone up triple and they could have done even better.
By understanding the movement of the Earth you would notice that no matter how or which direction you decided to place your Bh to avoid the heat from sunlight is of no use unless precaution is taken by having good insulating material. Somehow each side of the Bh wall would be directly hit by the UV ray depends on which month.
Often many would agree that the Shop lot unit has better successful rate .The Shop Lot unit is different compared to the Standalone. The Shop lot unit has advantages over the Standalone as both sides of its walls are naturally insulated or block by its neighbors. That is why that the Shop lot unit is much easy and better in term of micro control. This is one of the reasons why standalone is harder to do compare Shop lot unit.
For Standalone the only thing you could decide is the placement of the entrance hole of the Bh at East, South,West,Etc. other than that you can’t do much it is out of your control it is nature. The most important is to counter this with good wall insulating and good internal design.
For me I would prefer to have a Standalone to face the directing of birds sourcing for food rather than the directing of avoiding the sunlight. As I had mentioned before, we could counter the sunlight with additional insulation material and partitioning.
So now you know why Standalone is harder and taking longer time for birds to stay.
Good Swiflet farming all! The Best is To Share!
By James of www.swiftletfarmer.blogspot.com 2008