I was asked to comment about the Bh in these pictures that were sent to me few days ago. It was from my reader who had attended a seminar. He wants to share with me what he has learned and wants my comments. He is new in Swiftlet farming and he wouldn’t want to be lead by the nose. Here is the email from him.
Good day Sifu James,
I'm here to share my experience of attending seminar with the local xxxxxx xxxxxxx.
Last day I have attended a swiftlet farming seminar organized by xxxxxx xxxx of xxxxx. My purpose of attending this course is to get a cert to apply for the farming license. I'm glad to say I'm very lucky to have found your blog and have read your blogs before attending this seminar.
The speaker doesn’t believe in bird test and a good swiftlet sound. He said that all places in are full with swiftlet, so don't worry about no birds. Those who say you need to do a bird test before can build a BH is "tipu". This make my partner and I have a little argument, my partner blamed me for wasting money to have bought a new land (Bird test result 100-200birds or more) as we can use the land we already have (1st land-respond 5-20birds, 2nd land 2-10birds) and "pelan-pelan" the birds will come too.
2nd the using of good meranti merah wood like you always said in your blog, but the speaker said as long as the wood is soft and no smell it can be use as the nesting plank. My partner suggest me to use julutong wood instead using meranti merah wood (Because of the lack of budget my partner always query the materials I want to use into our BH and I not blame her. By the way I will stick using the meranti merah wood.)
Most of the topic presented are quite basic, off cause there is a new things I have learn from that seminar too. Especially the Translocation & Imprinting Tactic (Speaker not believe in calling bird tactic, the sound) where we, the BH owner can buy the cave baby birds from wildlife and bring it into the BH (Translocation), when the baby birds 1st open their eyes the "Imprinting" process will happen where the baby bird will print that the BH as their home in their mind and the baby will never leave the BH. Quite impressive…but not sure it will work.
After that we are allowed to visit the BH which is said as a very successful BH own by the speaker. I'm not sure whether it is really successful or not, the BH (20' x 40' x 2F) seem not fully occupied after operate for more than 5years, inside have little tweeter, no humidifier, no temp & humid measurement gadget, molded plank, some of the bird nest look too dry and cracked. Only upper floor are occupied by birds (Entrance Hole is from lower floor) and none in lower floor. I will share some picture to you. Please comment.
That seminar and BH visit is my very 1st experience, and I really enjoy it because I can apply what I have learn from your blog to evaluate the BH visited not by just accepting everything I saw and presented by them. Thank you very much Master James, hope you can continue writing more in your wonderful and excellent swiflet farmer blog. Thank you.
Best Regards,
A..xxxxxxx
Well my sincere comment by judging from these pictures are as follows:
Poor pest control, if you look closer there are many black spots on the planks ( everywhere) particularly around and behind the tweeter. Do you know what are these? These are cockroache shits. This Bh is infested with cockroaches. I am sure there are other predators too. Birds dare not build nests around the tweeters. This has transpired the owner to think that sound is not important. You need to be sharp and knowledgeable to see beyond the basic. Cranked and deformed nests indicated the Micro is not at preferable level.There must be too many movement of air in this Bh.
I am sure many of you have wondered why birds are not building nests at this tweeter? Isn't that their favourite place? Well there are reasons for this, either the internal sound is seriously lousy or there must be something not right. In this case the picture above tells all .
Wrong planking formation, birds having hard time when flapping their wings. It is too small for them to spread their wings when landing and take off. Well you could always argue that there are still nests built here...It could have been more nests perhaps double if the space between planks are bigger. Wouldn't you want more nests? ( currently it is less than 1 ft if I am right)
No grooves on planks and the planks are not ground smooth. One of the common misperception among Swiftlet farmers is that non grooved and grind planks are better. I strongly disagree. We are talking about facts not perception or myths.
Non grooved and grind planks : Dirty nests (sawdust and particles stick on the nests when harvesting. Quality of nests is reduced,etc). Sharp spikes from planks prevent birds from making nests, it pokes birds.
Non grooved and grind planks were used because those days grooved and ground planks were not available. It is not that they are superior.
Cockroaches like to eat nests. Look at those holes on the nests. Everything in the Bh shows something.It is up to how we define and interprete them. Knowledge and skills is needed to interpret all these signs . Those who are unable to identify and interprete the detearorating signs, to them all Bhs would look the same. In this case this Bh looks good and has no problem but it is suffering in silent.
Moulded Planks, birds won't build nests here. It is not that we are obsessed with Meranti, yes I do agree that all woods can be used for planking provided there are odourless and fungus resistant. But how many types of woods have such properties other than Meranti? (There are other options, but some hard woods are too expensive). Even without humidifier the planks already inffested with mold what if humidifiers are installed? Without good humidity the nests will be dirty, thin, crack, small, etc.This is what this Bh facing now. Does the owner know about this?........
There are more comments, but I guess I just have to keep it til here, it won't be good to say too much. I hope those who are facing similar problems would rectify them immediately or else it would affect the birds population .
Good Swiftlet farming to All!.
