These pictures were sent to me by a reader. He wants my advice and opinion on how to improve his farm's Swiftlet population. He had tried hard but to no avail. He wants to know whether I could identify any problems from these pictures.
By looking at the draw up plan, I knew the size is a disadvantage. The 11 x 40 feet size is a trouble for maneuvering. Furthermore with a zinc roofing and one layer brick without plaster is killing it all.
I didn't ask him about the number of birds inside as I sensed disastrous so no point of asking.
The owner told me this Swiftlet farm is located in Pekan, cited many people are going for such size and design aka Small farm. It is a trend he said.
I replied, " It doesn't matter small or big the farm is. Most important a Swiftlet farm must meet all the standard required, where the design must take into consideration of what swiftlets like and what swiftlets dislike.
The owner knows very little about Swiftlet behavior. He knows lots about the terms of Swiftlet farming like LAL, Rumah Monyet, etc but he doesn't know how to interpret them. For example, What it is for, when to use them, what advantage it has over other designs, whether it is suitable for a particular area and so on.
Knowing the term won't get you anywhere. One must know how to apply it.
After speaking for awhile he reveled that his Swiftlet farm had operated for 4 years now and there is not even a single nest inside. He said there are many similar Swiftlet farms here facing the same problem "inside zero" after many years and all are the aka Small size Swiftlet farms.
He adapted this type of design from Forums where he interacted.
Let's us find out why. Initially it was a Dog Kennel then changed it to an Open roof after he discovered birds reluctant to fly in.
From the plan the roving is 10 x 11 feet, the Open roof Entrance is 4 x 4. That means after the Open roof where the Birds dive in, there is only 5 feet left as a runway then instantly the Birds have to "press break" to the max before it could turn left. Any mistake they would bang on the wall and die.
That's not all the 3 feet second Entrance is also a barrier but what to do this Swiftlet farm has limited space. I don't blame the size of the second Entrance. If it were to open bigger then more light would penetrate into the farm. This would brighten up the entire farm (disliked by birds). In Chinese it is call " LPPL.. Lam Pa Pa Lam"....all the same. Left, right, front, back and center also die.
Don't mistaken me.....it is not all small Swiftlet farms are destined to fail. There are successful small Swiftlet farms too, but those successful ones are very well designed and had taken consideration of what Birds like and what birds dislike...eg. the flying path, internal control and so on.
Because of its size, it is very hard to control the light density. Therefore the owner painted the roving wall with black paint to reduce the glaring.
In such situation the size of this Swiftlet farm is a disadvantage. The second partition had already taken up 6 feet plus and the roving 10 feet. Now all left for the Nesting is only 24 feet. With a short length 24 feet left the light from the roving can easily reach the back of the roving. So this has to be rectified, but the owner doesn't how to do it. All he knows is painting the wall black which is not good enough.
As you could see from the pictures above, the internal tweeters were installed in the middle and the side of the planks. There are not installed at the corner boards. Why? The reason which many believe, if tweeters were to install at the corner boards nests built there will be smaller and often consider as corner nests.
If tweeters were to install at the middle of the planks then nests built there will be straight nests that would fetch a better price.
But they have never thought of what if Swiftlets don't build nests in the farm at all? Isn't it is better to have corner nests rather than not having any nests at all.
The temperature inside is killing the birds. I don't have to ask him what the Temperature is. A single layered sand brick without plaster...you know what I mean.
In Hot season this Swiftlet farm is like an oven easily reaching 34C perhaps more. Without wall insulation when temperature falls at night the internal temperature would fall below 25C.
Naturally, Swiftlets could sense this. They knew if they build nests in such Swiftlet farm their eggs can never hatch and the embryos will die. So it is better to find a more conducive environment, in other word a better Swiftlet farm...perhaps neighbor' Swiftlet farm.
So there you go, it is all boil down to how well you could interpret and understand Birds behavior. Once you had acquired this knowledge then you could build a Swiftlet farm that like by Swiftlets.
Now I have to come out with a plan to safe this Swiftlet farm. It is not easy but it can be done.
Good Swiftlet Farming All!
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