Blaming others is one of the most easiest
ways to get out from the mess you are in. 90% failed Swiftlet farm owners never
blame themselves. They blamed it on the Swiftlet farming equipments,
consultants, Bhs,etc.
Did they ever think that they are the cause
of all problems? “NO”.
Why Swiftlet farms fail? There are hundred
and one reasons but in order to get to the root of the problem we must
understand what constitutes a successful Swiftlet farm. Is it the number of nests
in the Bh? Is it the number of birds in the Bh and so on that justify the
success?
If yes, how come when they build their
second or third Swiftlet farm after the first successful one it barely reaches
10 nests the first year. The performances were totally different from the
successful ones which they had built earlier. Let’s look closer and understand
what influences all these.
Swiftlet farming is all about knowledge,
skills and thorough planning. Without all these even the best built Swiftlet
farm, equipped with the best equipment and gadget in a populated bird area won’t
guarantee success.
How effectively a Swiftlet farm could
attract birds to stay and build nests very much relied on the effectiveness in controlling
the Bh Micro (internal) and Macro (external). Additional to these factors we
also need to have good Swiftlet farming skills. All these add together would
help us in building a good successful Swiftlet farm.
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Factors Influencing the Success of Swiftlet Farm
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50%
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50%
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Skill &
Knowledge
Understand
Bird’s flying path
Understand the
Bh design
Understand the
Characteristic
& Birds Behavior
Understand the
breeding cycle
Understand the
Material of the Building (insulation properties)
Understand the
equipment& gadgets usage.
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Population of
the Birds in the area
Food source
Geographical
& landscaping (Trees, mountain, rivers, etc)
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Birds prime zone
Successful over
populated Bhs
Birds flying
route
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Temperature
Humidity
Light density
Nesting Planks
Entrance Hole
Partitioning
Size of the Bh
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Aroma
Sound System
Mist sprinkler
(outdoor)
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If you have both of the above chances are
your Swiftlet farms will have many nests in a short period. Obviously you
cannot rely solely on the equipment and gadget you must understand how these equipment
and gadgets work and how they could benefit you.
A good example is, you definitely cannot
put a Humidifier in your Swiftlet farms just because you want to increase the
humidity. You must also understand how it works, the time to operate, how long
should it operate, where it should be placed, how many units is sufficient,
what type of humidifiers should be used and so on.
Even you have an automatic controller
(Hygrostat) for the humidifier it still wouldn’t solve the humidity problem for
long run. I have come across Swiftlet farms with low Rh and the owners install
many humidifiers to get the RH reading up. He discovered that he managed to get
the RH reading at 85% but the Humidifiers keep running most of the time even
with the automatic controller. The only time it stops is when it rain.
This clearly indicated that the Humidifiers
have not been fully utilized for the purpose of humidity but as a suppression
to compensate for wet vapor that had escaped from the Swiftlet farm. So the
main problem is not humidity but Ventilation control. The solution is to
control and manage the Ventilation System of the Swiftlet farm first.
That
is the problem with many Swiftlet farmers they think Swiftlet farming equipment
and gadgets are the ultimate solution to their farms’ problems. That is a wrong
perception. The equipment and gadgets are of no benefits if you don’t know how to
make use of it. The purpose of the humidifier is beyond humidity. It makes
better quality nests, birds feel better and produce higher volume of saliva, etc
Now you could clearly understand why you
have installed many equipment and gadgets and yet birds still don’t build
nests.
Humidity is only a small part in the
process of building a good Swiftlet farm. There are hundreds of other things
like light density, temperature, aroma, sound, etc which we need to understand
before we could fully utilize them.
So isn’t Swiftlet farming interesting?
The learning never ends.
Good Swiftlet Farming All!
