A beautiful 3 storey Swiftlet farm in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. A 20 x 60 standalone, located at a Padi field. If location is the criteria this farm is sitting in the right place.
Sadly after 2.5 years it has only 12 nests. What has gone wrong? The owner had tried all effort but with no avail. After numerous revamps had been done the number of nest still remains the same. Now I am the third person invited to solve this problem.
In order to solve this one has to find out the root cause of the problem. Lets find out the root cause.
A beautifully built Swiftlets farm with double layered bricks. A location surrounded with Padi fields. My first observation of the landscaping tells me that the farm micro could be easily managed if the structure and the design of the Swiftlets farm could be harmonized with the environment.The micro is good, ranging from 26-29C averagely. Given the location, humidity was not a problem at all.
But to my surprise.... if the environment filed with water like Padi filed why does the Swiftlets farm needs so many Ventilation holes? Secondly.... why the internal walls are surrounded with water pools? Wouldn't the humidity be too high?
It clearly shows the builder lack the skill of Swiftlet farming. A distance of 1 feet per Vent-hole. This would affect the movement of air inside the farm.
The design of the Swiftlets farm adopted a huge inter hole size of 10 x 10ft at the middle of the farm throughout all floors. It was understood that the bigger the Inter hole the easier for the birds to fly to the lower floor. This is subjective unless it harmonies with the size of the Swiftlet farm. Given the Swiftlet farm was only 20 x 60ft, the inter hole located right at the middle taking lot of space leaving both sides of the inter-hole 5 ft . With such big inter holes in a small farm it took up the space for nesting areas. Big inter hole allows light to penetrate into the whole farm making it too bright. ( good for big farm , bad small farm)
To solve this problem the builder resort to painting the whole farm black. This is making it worse. Either too bright or too dark. No wonder birds are not staying in this Swiftlet farm. The design of a big inter hole at the middle of the farm is good for big sized Swiftlet farm but not for a 20 x 60ft .
I asked the owner..."didn't those who came and revamp your Swiftlet farm tell you all these?"
His reply was " they just came and revamp and didn't explain anything. I thought they were experts".
Everybody could be an expert if you perceive them as an expert. Your perception of the Sifus is subject to your understanding and knowledge in Swiftlet farming. If you knew very little then any fellow who has just picked up a book in Swiftlet
This is what I told the owner.
Again poor tweeter system installation. I don't see the reason why tweeters are not installed at the corners. We know that Swiftlets build nests at the corner. We also know that they fly in a circular motion 1-2 ft away from the walls. We couldn't deny all these if we want to build a successful Swiftlet farm. But then again surprisingly people still don't install tweeters at the corners.
You could see most tweeters are concentrated in some nesting rooms only. While rest of the areas left emptied. No nests were built in the rooms that have many tweeters. Those in the pictures are artificial nests. To check how effective the sound system was I asked the owner to switch on the sound. The sound is not balance...if you are inside the room your ears will hurt. If you are at the inter hole area you hear little. The Inter holes have only one or two tweeters. The number is insufficient. To lure Swiftlets to the lower floor the inter -hole must have many tweeters. In regards to the size of 10x 10ft it should have 8-12 tweeters.
I have been to many successful Swiftlet farms which have thousand of nests. The Swiftlet sound came from all angles. We want to imitate this type of environment that is why people call it surround sound ( real sound). If tweeters are only fixed in rooms it wouldn't be able to lure birds to stay and build nests.
I wouldn't buy the idea of having an opening of a nesting room at the middle. Unless it can not be avoided like some shop lots. But this is a building built for Swiftlet.
Again by nature Swiftlet fly in a circular motion. If the opening is at the side ( Left or Right) it would be easier for them to maneuver especially young birds.( few months old). If flying is hard in this Swiftlet farm they will migrate.
Do you know where the Idea of having the opening at the middle came from? I guess not.
Most people who championed this idea is purely copying (follow) it, without weighting its nature of origin. I call it "blindly follow".
This idea came from shop lots built before the 70's and 80's. The ground floor is usually for business activity and the 1st and 2nd are for residential. Often there are rooms at the front ,the back and a wet area ( kitchen) at the middle. When all these buildings were converted into Swiftlet farms the middle section ( wet area) are made into an Open roof.
Those days to save cost they didn't hack down the walls. So the front room ( 1st Floor) door which located in the middle works as opening to the room ( nesting area). As time goes by they are occupied by birds. They could have done it better if the opening is at the side.
When people visited these shop lots they followed (copy) what they saw.... The actual fact is .... it would have been better if the opening is at the side.
Now my plan is to remove the partitions and move them further front closer to the roving area. This would increase the size of the nesting areas.
The black paint has to go. This farm is either too bright or too dark..there is no contrast. I need to create an environment that is just nice neither too bright nor dark.( between too bright and too dark which liked by birds).
It is not an easy job but it can be done. This farm has too many flaws.The owner has attended few seminars. He has also learned from few so called well known Sifus. The design of the farm to sound system installation were the advise of his mentor ( Sifu).
Now he knows what he had learned all this while. A detail revamp plan has been given to the owner of this Swiftlet farm. He has to complete the revamp in a week. Working from 9am-3pm.
Good Swiftlet Farming All!
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