Second BH Visited Also At Papar Sabah.

I learned that the owner attended one of my Swiftlet Farming Seminars in 2009.

He remember what I told him about how attracted are those swiftlet to water ponds especially in the evening.

What he did was to start building a fish pond about 50 feet by 100 feet.

"Pak Harry we have ikan Talapia and Patin inside the pond.  After one year we build this BH facing the fish pond like exactly like what you advised us during the Seminar I attended." he was making a point.

The idea of following my pond facing suggestion was good but something was not right with his BH, I told him.

I listed my concerns to him especially when I could not climb upstairs since there was no ladder around.

The biggest concern was the staircase to reach the top floors.

This three stories and about 20 feet by 80 feet with 10 feet high each floor is without a staircase.

How the hell are we going to climb up?

Usually he has those collapsible ladder but he forgot to bring along.

I have never visited another BH with this ladder forgot to bring concept before.

My next concern was his entrance hole style.

One was directly to the pond and the other was at 90* to the first.

During my test using Selking sound those birds seems to come into one hole and quickly flew out of the other.

I decided to ask him to open the main hole and shut the second hole.

There were very little external sound tweeters around the monkey house plus inside the BH.

Asked him to increase the numbers.

The LAL areas were a bit too bright and recommended a kind of partition around both LALs.

One major mistake inside this BH were the orientation of a row of nesting planks.  They were running parallel to the birds flying path.

I advised him to install wood crossings about 4 rows minimum creating boxes about 2.5 feet apart.

There was no partition to create any VIP rooms.

Decided to proposed to him to erect a few walls so that they can become VIP rooms.

Among the many sounds tested I told the owner that the Selking was still the most attractive.

Wrote about 18 pages about what he should do and if need more advise call me, I told him,

I hope he appreciate my contribution and perhaps one day once the BH is full he will remember who came so far to help him out.

The First BH Inspected During August 23rd 2013 Visit to KK !!!

A majestic looking 4 stories BH with little nests inside.

My first BH inspection was somewhere in Papar, Sabah.

A four stories BH about 25 feet by 80 feet by 9 feet tall per floor.

The owner opted for a top entry entrance hole type using a kind of monkey house structure.

This BH was put into operation for almost 8 months but with very little nests (two only) so far.

The number of bird shit spots were about 15 and mainly on the third floor.

The owner purchased my "SuperVac" earlier and was using it when I was at his BH.  No wonder the number of birds flying in and out was unusual.

Upon inspection I put forward some concern on his BH.

The number one on the list was the power supply.  He is using those solar powered system.  I told him that usually using solar system gives a kind of limitation.  Less flexibility.

Main reason was that we have to be careful not to exhaust the batteries to operate those critical things inside and outside.

My second concern about this particular BH was the use of top entry system with a monkey house structures.

This design will have a reasonable disadvantages since those swiftlet will not find the main entry hole that easy.

My suggestion to him was to cut the monkey house structure to become like a slanting box cut diagonally.

My third big concern was the use of 4 feet by 4 feet cement boards as its floor.  This will be a big problem if by accident the BH was flooded.

He should have opt for cement concrete floor but was wrongly advised to use the cement boards.

The only way out is to cover the floor with those plastic sheet used by rural kampung house owners to flatten out their wooden floors.  The plastic sheet will be able to prevent water from wetting the cement boards.

Fourth interesting concern was the follow up tweeters used inside this BH.

As usual and very common in most failed BHs is that the external sound is only at the entrance hole areas or at the tunnel.  Nothing were done on the rest of the doors and inside the nesting room.

Sketched where to put the additional tweeters and also drew the type of tweeters to be installed.

Fifth have to do with the room just when the birds enter each floor.

The consultant came out with this strange idea of making a room about 10 feet by 10 feet with one inlet hole about 1.5 feet by 2 feet and two outlet holes about 1 feet by 1 feet.

My recommendation: Please don't use this poor design

It was so tight that will make those birds to turn backward and out they go.

The most ridiculous design ever accounted during this trip.  I am not surprise to see more weird designs.

Sixth point that I highlighted to the BH only was about his open space concept.
Those swiftlet loves rooms.  Why don't he create one or two VIP rooms.  I sketched the precise locations with appropriate door frames.

Seventh point was the use of fake nests.  He did installed a few, about 10 or so per floor, but I am looking at perhaps 50-100 per floor.

Eight point was the use of hexagonal tweeters.  I almost swear to the almighty that he will get three to four times more birds visiting his rooftop.  He was not amused with my swearing but I insisted to say so.

I also suggested on the used of two Bazookas and perhaps two kite tweeters.

Overall this BH needs lots of attention.

I put forward my report to him the next day and told him to call me if he cannot understand what I wrote using my personal hand writing.

I told him to keep the original because one day when the BH is full he can auction the report for RM 1,000,000.

Who knows it might be a very sorted after artifact within the next 20 years.

Those whose BH are sick please let me know.

Call me at 0177551318

______________________________________________________________________________

The best method to get more birds into your BH

is to apply this method used by someone

from Dungun Trengganu

HOW TO POPULATE YOUR BH QUICKLY.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The BH walls were made of special brick

 Fig tree obtained from my follower with his BH in Tilapok

Look at the monkey house

The entering point is on the roof of this monkey house.

I disagree on the monkey house with opening of the roof.

Sekinchan BH Re-Engineering Finally Over !!!

After almost two weeks and the revamp or re-engineering works on the Sekinchan BH were over.

The BH looks okay and I assured the BH owner that the BH will have a reasonable number of birds within the next few weeks.

The only major change made was the relocation of two LALs to lure those wild birds from the back to the front nearer to the monkey house.

The old design seems to think that LALs should be far away from the main entrance area.

This causes lesser birds going down to the ground floor.

 

The two LAL holes one above the other.

One very critical decision made while revamping this BH was to shut down the top most floor.

I told the owner that if we allow those swiftlet to enter the floor most of them will not stay for long and will never built any nest.

My main reason was directed to the very high temperature recorded on the floor.

The culprit was the cement roof that was not covered with any elevated zinc roof to prevent direct sun rays.

A few days ago the roof was hitting 40.8*C while the back wall recorded 35.3*C, the left wall facing the west was 33*C and the opposite wall was at 32*C.

 

Actual reading recorded by a laser thermometer of the ceiling at 3:00 pm.

 

The wall that faces the morning sun was at 35.3*C

You can imagine how hot is the floor with all the three walls and it cement ceiling showing such a very high temperatures.

Just think what will happen to your body when you climb the staircase and walked onto the floor.

Within a very short minutes you will be swearing how hot it was and your body will be drenched with sweat.

For this reason I have decided to close or make it difficult for those swiftlet to enter the floor area.

The moment they entered the monkey house they will be directed to fly down via the new LAL holes.

If they should stay down on both floors below there will be a very strong chance that they will stay for good.

The owner plan to look into installing a roof once his financial resources is okay.

"Just get the zinc roof cladded with those foam installed  as per my sketch and call me to insulate the walls with those heat shield material, your top floor will be okay." I voiced my opinion to him.

I have created two VIP rooms per floor and each room was filled with aroma sprayed fake nests.

The number of internal sound tweeters was about 300 pieces per floor.

I took some trouble to clean some of the nesting planks and also applied with the liquid super pheromone.

Another major problem with the BH was without any pipe water.

After some discussion with the owner we pull a pipe from a house beside the fence.

This tedious operation took one fruitful day away just because we wanted to operate those humidifiers and filled the "wet floor system".

Again we went blank when the water pressure was not adequate to push the water to the top most floor (roof).

After waiting for one night, hoping that the water pressure will be okay at night, we were disappointed.

I set down with my workers and told them to cut the height from the roof top to the second floor.

 

The black water pipe was able to push some water to the second floor.

This time it works.

Another half day gone just to get the pipe water into the BH.

Got the wet floor filled and those humidifier functioned.

Also wet the walls and the floors just to make them wet and cool.

I was happy that the job was finally over and now need to take a few days rest before proceeding to Sungai Rambai.

My workers inform the owner that each morning there were about 8-10 birds inside.

During working there were a few birds already ready to be permanent tenants.

A very good news to the owner who have been waiting for almost 2 years to get some visitors inside.

Auto Humidity sensor

One VIP room with styrofoam fake nests lots of them

Another angle

Both the angle and rectangular shape fake nests were deployed

More for you to digest

Second VIP room with industrial rubber fake nests

Lots of cluster tweeters

View from VIP toward the hall

Combined with triangled fake nests

Owl trap gadget installed

 

The wet floor installed to humidify the BH

Look at the hexagonal and kite tweeters plus power tweeters

Give Enough Distance Between Sensor and Humidifiers !!!

The sensor should not be too closed to the humidifier

I have this special information which most of us tend to take it for granted.

When you activate your humidifiers using those auto humidity sensor please be careful.

I never experience this before however a blog reader called me to supply him the gadget.

What happened to him was that the sensor have difficulties to stop the humidifier even though the setting were correct.

You can imagine what happen next if your humidifier continue to run 24 hours a day.

All your nesting planks will be soon covered with those fungus.

They say that if that happen you need to forget about swiftlet farming but call yourself mushroom breeder.

I was a bit out of track and could not help him much until he called someone who happen to be the supplier of the sensor device.

According to the supplier if you put the sensor too closed to the humidifier the sensor tip will be wet and it will no longer able to provide the right signal to your controller.

To avoid this kind of error reading you need to place the sensor at least 8-10 feet away from where you place those humidifiers.

The problem that we always has is that the electrical cable from the humidifier is too short and usually not more than 5 feet.

What you need to do is to use the sensor's wire to the maximum.

Usually these sensors comes with 10-15 feet cables.

You must also hang the sensor not too closed to the floor and at the same time not to high from the floor.

My advise is to place it at around 5-6 feet above the floor and 10 feet away from the nearest humidifier.

Be careful not to turn your BH into a mushroom plantation.

Best of luck to all of you out there.

H-911 Nikodo Sensor and auto controller

Humidifier

Be A Bit More Patience to Get Where You Planned To Be !!!

This is a story about a BH owner who was a bit too impatience.

My key advise to him was to stick to our main objective and try not to stop half way.

While visiting Kota Kinabalu I dropped by at a BH whose owner wanted to show me his BH progress.

He sounded to be very very proud with the nests population growth so far and I think his BH can go further with it.

This particular BH was under my care or observation from the first day it was built.

I took a number of trips to see it build and installed with those tweeters and various other gadgets.

One special gadget that I recommended to owner was to installed those fake nests.

He followed my advise and installed more than what I initially suggested.

 

(Used to have something like this many)

The use of fake nests is actually nothing new.  My main reason being those young couples especially male are pretty lazy to build their first nest.

The fastest way to get a nest ready is to use those fake nests.

My advise to him was to used those fake nests until his BH is occupied by at least 600 birds or 300 couples.

My main objective was to hit around 300 couples which equate to 300 nests.

The 300 nests will be the cut off point where his BH will be able to run on a automatic mode.

Each breeding cycle, about four months, these 300 odd nests will produce about 600 young birds.  Three times a year this will hit 1800 young birds per 12 months.

The word automatic here is when he need no longer depends on other birds from his neighbor's BHs because his own BH now can produce about 1,800 young birds per year.

So when he entered the auto mode he should focus more on how to encourage his own young babies to stay and not to run away to other BHs.

Just imagine if all those 1,800 young birds should return home and bring their partner home.

If all should bring one partner home there will be a total of 1,800 new nests in this BH.

Okay coming back to this BH in Kinarut, Sabah, the owner started to feel that he got a kind of short changed since those nests erected on those fake nests were not in the proper shape and weight lesser than normal.

The number of full nests was about 186 pieces.

This was when he side stepped or forgotten about the main objective which I have stressed to him many many times.

"You should have continued to use those fake nests until your total number of birds staying inside your BH reaches or exceeded 600 birds." I clearly reminded him again and again.

His BH used to have more then 600 fake nests and nearly 50% of them were with those saliva markings.

Now he removed nearly all except a few (see these pictures taken).

Well sometime I cannot blame him for the sudden change of mind but I still believed that what I preaches is the best for his or any BH.

What do you think will happen when he made this wrong decision?

Well if he is lucky he might still get the nest population increase but I think there will be some brake applied.

My prediction is that the growth will be slower as compared to before this event.

I told him not to throw away those removed fake nests at the moment.

"Try to monitor your nests numbers for the next few months.  If you find out that they are getting slower than before you need to reinstate all of them back." I advised him.

When you owned a BH you must not depend on luck but you must used all the right techniques and gadgets to boost your nests population.

If Pak Harry give you his opinions and advises I think you should listen to him carefully.

All in all he cares about you and your BH.

He is a very rare breed of BH consultant.  He usually will give you his best for the sake of our Swiftlet industry.

He shares his experiences, his new gadgets, his new find aroma, his new sounds and etc.

No one on this planet is like him, in this challenging swiftlet farming industry.

Look around you and ask yourself who else can you turn to if you have problems with your BH?