go to www.tinypic.com to upload the picture ... then copy&paste the direct link here

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Mar 20 2011, 03:56 PM

Hi everybody,

Just went to see a nearly completed agri-land 22x75x3 BH with 1acre land.
Price is slightly more than middle between 400-500k.
Checked the interior workmanship and material quality not bad, have electricity and water but no paper document for the BH.

My JV partner is very interested but I'm having serious reservations because of the high cash requirement and high risk .



This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Mar 27 2011, 09:33 PM

Thanks for your reply.

That area have 3 other visible argi-land-BH. The seller said it's good swiftlet area if not there won't be other BH there before him. A friend who have BH experience living near there also went with us and said the area is do-able.
For myself i didn't see or hear a single bird in the sky during that afternoon.

Will make the car-tweeter test kit and bring there before making decision.

The BH have not started yet ... currently under construction but almost complete.


1 of the BH near there also under-construction but the progress is slower by 1-2weeks only. Would this be a serious point to consider ?
My partner said its inevitable because everywhere have new BH coming up, but I think it would seriously affect the success rate and growth rate if 2 empty BH "open sound" at same time.

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Mar 29 2011, 09:06 PM

if the BH location is recommended by friend or other ppl then have to give cash

if apply for electricity and water meter and connection very long also never come, might need kopi expenses

Hi everybody,

Anybody have experience building standalone BH on land near town ?

I went to see my partner's land... got birds in the sky... only 2 coconut + 3 big trees on neighbour's land which might pose a problem.

here are some pros-and-cons I can think of

■much higher land price (compared to agriculture-land) because land only 100 meter from town
■intense competition from town BH, other BH's tweeters pointing at your direction
■standalone building might be hard to sell off in the future if BH fail

■able to reach existing bird population at town and attract them
■near town location more appealing for resale compared to agriculture land
■less wild predator from town direction
■might be able to be avoid being classified as town BH because not situated inside town shophouse

Currently there is a wooden house with my partner's relative living there temporary, maybe can attempt a low budget partial conversion to BH ?
because if successful then it would save the nearly 300k cash needed to build a real concrete BH. If failure then the planks and tweeters can be removed and start gathering the funds needed to construct a real standalone BH.
This plan might be plausible as long the BH internal conditions are met and ignoring the fact that other taller buildings are 100m away, am I right ?

On the way there I saw an owl standing on telephone line at roadside at around 6:10pm, is it common for them to come out so early when the sky is still bright ?


Thanks for reading, please share your comments with us.

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Apr 10 2011, 01:15 AM

i think successful is subjective .....

some people happy when the harvest enough to pay for loan or rental
some people happy when the harvest is in numerous KG

Thanks for the info.
Last time somebody told me the interest rate for land is 'very high' like 11% , had a shock.
BLR +1.xx% is around 7% currently

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Apr 11 2011, 05:45 PM

Don't be discouraged to speak out.
I have read from v1 to v3 and all the helpful info posted by experienced BH operators such as yourself have benefited us curious readers beyond whatever we could have imagined.
If forumers close their lips tight as a clam, this swiftlet thread wouldn't have progressed to the impressive 6 thousand postcount today.

For myself I always thought the "safe" period to start harvest is around 100-300 nest so the birds won't be frightened easily.

My big uncle always tease me to bring him some nest to eat but I told him the time is not ripe yet and we have to wait for a long time.

Hi everybody,

Does these levers on the amp need to be set ?
I was browsing a blog of a contractor/seller and I saw the a few of the amp in the photos had this setting.
Do I have to set mine the same way ?
Currently my amp is set to all straight line at the middle.


Thanks.



This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Apr 18 2011, 10:18 PM

Thanks for the reply.
I shall share some updates on my BH if you guys don't mind my newbie experience


About 1month+ ago I solved the problem of pigeon standing on dog kennel ledge with DIY nail carpet.
1 piece of unwanted grey canvas with an underlayer of unwanted plastic rice bag.
Place these on styrofoam and hammer nails to the estimated shape & length of the dog kennel ledge.
Use fingers to slowly pry the nail carpet from the styrofoam and secure it on the ledge with tape.

Currently my BH is 2month+ , counted nearly 20 (mostly small) droppings spots recently when applying aroma liquid.
There are still some flaws such as
>temp 1-2 celcius lower than ideal 28c
>lots of dead cockroaches on the floor
>vent holes too windy

Currently not using humidifier and there isn't any water inside the BH.... so no wet concrete

I hang the thermo/hygro meter 1ft below plank at the middle of the BH where the wall doesn't receive any warmth from the Sun.
Recorded lowest/highest of 26.1 to 27.8 over period of 2 weeks in early february.

Since got some bird come already I'll try to leave it alone and see how it goes.
Dare not do any big changes for the time being.

Infact I don't know any solution to "heat" up the BH except removing the styrofoam insulation
Next time go in will block up half of the ventilation holes.

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Apr 19 2011, 05:48 PM

Hi everybody,

I've read on a blog that electronics will hang after prolonged 24/7 use so we should off/on reset the internal sound amp when visiting the BH.
Is this step okay ?

Thank you.

slave labour camp disguised as 5star hotel

bald swiftlet @ 2:43
swiftlet fall down the funnel @ 9:44
swiftlets on the floor @ 11:53

Dolphins are also born to roam the open seas , but living in captivity (as small as 10m pool) they are very stressed and not happy.
Some even close their own blowhole to suicide drown.

Mad cow disease started in UK when farmers wanted to save cost so the raw carcass of sick cows was mixed back to the animal feed as protein source.

Swiftlets can live their whole life cycle without human assistance or intervention.
Using these "techniques" will increase the chance of contamination by human caretakers.
Hope everyone in animal related industry will do it with conscience.

Thank you very much for the reply.

Will get the hager timer and DIY that timer board then connect 2 amps to tweeter layout.

Some updates on my JV BH...
7 weeks since last inspection...


very little improvement in number of bird dropping spots since last inspection
none of the patches have any feather or nest marking

nail carpet on entry hole failed, nails are too long
1 tiny swiftlet feather found on tip of nail
removed it for safety of swiftlets even if pigeons might return to roost on entry hole

temperature went surprisingly high
previous temps taken in February and March were 28, 26-27 Celsius
today we saw 30.2 Celsius at 10am in the morning, afternoon would be worst
so we started using 2 humidifiers on timers, 1 on each floor

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: May 29 2011, 10:03 PM

Those blogs do teach, but you must remember certain items are low cost to make and being sold for profit. Just filter out those parts and process the other info whether it is relevant to your BH.
If your still skeptical then just browse it for the pictures as not all of us have the privilege of viewing other ppl's BH.

Some personal experiences

The amp's instruction booklet have specifications of the upper limit of kbps they can play.
Mine is 320kbps so this is the setting I put when encoding a rip.

2 weeks ago, I received a thumbdrive with .wma format that wouldn't play in my amp so I am forced to encode it into .mp3 format.
A birdhouse contractor boss once told me that .wma format is uncompressed and better thats why the amp from indonesia he selling uses this format.

My personal opinion is the sound system must be balanced in upgrades.
No point pursuing super high quality digital signals if the low end tweeter is unable to accurately convert it into soundwaves.

Last year I've read their 75page prospectus.
This and other similar schemes have been discussed before earlier in this thread.

The investment scheme BHs are built on the side of the site, the other BH in the project have private owners.
Whatever harvest will -30% management -maintenance expenditure & sinking fund ... the leftover is split across the 19 or so parts of 10k share per BH.
After 35years the scheme ends, BH ownership goes back to the company.

The attractive returns (higher than Warren Buffet) can only be sustained if every BH have same performance of gathering X kg of nest within X number of years.


No I did not invest in it. The money is better used for renovating BH.

I saw on a certain blog that EYS buy from a sarawak family run business which clean the nest for them. There is a photo of the auntie putting brown & orange nests in a huge tub of hot water to soften the nests .

This post has been edited by BirdNest_Satay: Jun 27 2011, 02:47 AM