Couple of weeks ago I was invited to visit few Swiftlet farms in Sabah. One of the Swiftlet farms I had visited belongs Mr.A who is from Kota Kinabalu.
I suppose to visit them last year. Due to my busy schedule somehow I had delayed it until recently. I came to know Mr.A from my blog reader who is also a regular user of Love Potion.
Mr.A have not gone inside his Swiftlet farm since 2012 as the builder/consultant is holding the keys. The last time he went inside was 2 years ago when it was first built.
His friends advised him to cut the lock prior to my visit so that I could go in to do my job. I guess the builder/consultant can't be reached now.
A beautiful location with plenty of insects and greenery. A wonderful place for Swiftlet farming how come this Swiftlet farm in not doing well? There must be something wrong somewhere. Sabah is a good place for Swiftlet farming. It is one of the easiest place to do Swiftlet farming. Records have shown within a year some Swiftlet farms here could achieve few hundreds nests.
There are many Swiftlets here. Its all about how good one could attract them into a Swiftlet farm to stay and to build nests...and so on..generation to generation. In order to achieve this we need to understand what constitute a good Swiftlet farm and its control of the internal factors.
For those who don't know Mr.A's sorrow would have perceived that his Swiftlet farm is doing very well. There are hundred of Swiftlets circling and visiting his farm daily. But those that actually stayed are less than a handful.
I have literated we want nests not birds. No point of having thousand of Swiftlets circling flying above your farms everyday but the number of nests inside the farm remains low. The economy value of a Swiftlet farm relies on the number of the nests inside, not on how many birds came to play.
( So many Vent-Holes)
One thing that catches my eye was the Vent-hole. Why does this farm need so many Vent-holes? Won't it jeopardize the whole internal environment. There will be too many movement of air in the farm. It would be too cool during the night and too hot during the day. The fluctuation of temperature and humidity would be hard to control hence chicks and egg won't survive in such condition. Even if it would the fatality rate will be high. Swiftlets often avoid this type of internal environment ( farm).
Roll of Vent-holes, 10 Vent bricks per column. That is ridiculous. Many had misunderstood the purposes of Vent-hole. Let me remind you Vent-hole is not for the purpose of lowering the temperature of a farm. To understand a simile would help : Your car air-cond switched on, then you wind down all four windows.What happens? The temperature of the external will be the same as internal after all window have been wind down. You won't feel the air cond anymore.
To have good internal temperature control the wall and roof insulation have to be properly done. The stability of temperature and humidity inside the farm is very much influenced by how well you insulated the walls and ceiling. Though Vent-Hole does reduce the temperature but it is not significant.
Now Mr.A knows why birds don't build nests inside this farm. I explained to him in detail how all these factors could affect his farm. He doesn't know about this though he had spoken with many so call experts.
This is the entrance hole, there are only 4 tweeters.There are not facing 45 degree to the sky. Bear in mind this is an Open roof farm, birds dive from the sky unlike Dog Kennel type where birds fly straight.... horizontally. It is recommended that the Tweeters are installed 45 degree facing the sky.
Obviously there are too few Tweeters at the entrance hole. After checking the tweeters I discovered most of them are not functioning anymore. I advise Mr.A to install 16 tweeters at the entrance hole, 4 at the bottom the rest at the side and top. I recommended him to us the Hi-Nest Gs-18 tweeters as they are specially tuned to Swiftlet frequency.
Look.....only 3 tweeters per almost 400s/f area. That is ridiculous few. Furthermore there are not installed at the corner areas towards the walls. I don't blame the one who had installed all these tweeters. If he doesn't know and understand Swiftlet flying patent and their behaviors then how would he know where to fix them.
Not surprised, only 2 tweeters can bee seen here. How do you expect the Swiftlet to build nests here. From Vent-hole problem to sound system problem and there are many more problems that I need to solve.
A big mistake. It is not advisable to install Tweeters on the middle of the nesting planks . Reasons: 1) All young birds start to build nests at the corner not at the middle of the plank. You can observe this in your farm. So it makes no sense to install them in the middle especially new farms. 2) If you observe the flying behaviour of birds, they fly in a circular motion and chances for them to perch or hang will be more to the corner areas.
The design of this Swiftlet farm is not Swiftlet friendly. It didn't not take into consideration of birds flying path and light density. There are areas that are too bright and areas that are too dark. Poor light density control . Certain hours of the day some areas ( internal) of the farm is too bright. The builder should have known it, the sun doesn't move in a straight line throughout the years. It moves a few degree, therefore its position is not the same in the month of January compared to the month of August. I wonder how many actually pay attention to this...ha..ha..ha..or never.
I taught Mr.A how to observe all these factors. It would help him to manage his Swiftlet farm without relying on others.
Few partitions need to be erected to slow down the light glare all had been written down. Now all he needs to do is to engage few construction workers to get the job done.
He needs to install 70-100 Hi-nest Gs-18 tweeters and replace the old Amplifiers with few unit of HI-Nest B-52 Amplifiers. Since there are large number of birds came and play everyday, the main strategy is to lure them to stay and build nests. In order to do this we have to create an internal environment that is friendly to birds therefore a good GS Hypnotism internal sound and Aroma to persuade them to stay is vital.
Now Mr.A has learned that not all good locations can produce good Swiftlet farm, but a good Swift farm for sure would produce good harvest.
After the visit we sit down for hours as I have to explain the revamp plan to Mr.A. I make sure he understands the plan well and the whole idea of the revamp.
Good Swiftlet farming All!
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