On the eve of our National day, its good to reflect on the state of Malaysia. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" was a famous quote in President John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech (by the way, it was a paraphrase borrowed from his prep school headmaster) and it reflected the idealism of the 60s period.

Lets think; would it make sense to utter such an idea in countries like Zimbabwe for example? One can argue that our country is by far better than Zimbabwe... but then again, by how much? There are plenty of eye-openers available in this Internet era... the news that one hear from the networks or the mainstream papers will never give the true pictures. For example, sites like Malaysia Today do have some interesting and controversial features that all eligible voters should read and ponder.

Even from the mainstream news media, Malaysia is getting on the slippery road what with the existence of hate based and fear mongering pressure bodies and oddball personalities posturing and threatening all and sundry to toe their line or else.

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Added on August 31, 2010, 7:39 amODE TO MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

I wonder if anyone has heard of the film- Mr Smith Goes to Washington? I think few Malaysians has seen it; by the way, its in black and white and I am sure a good many would turn up their noses at such an old movie. But sometimes, there is truth in the saying that oldies are goldie. Many wonderful first rate films are in black and white such as Casablanca, Lonely are the brave, High Noon, etc. I am not against films in color as I too enjoy watching well done ones such as African Queens, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind, etc. Anyway, the wonderful thing about the Internet is that one can easily find out a great many interesting things about this movie and its background, its history, its ideology, etc.

All I can say about this 1939 film is that it is extremely well done and its so passionate and moving. Jimmy (James, actually) Stewart is my kind of actor and so are Gary Cooper and Geogory Peck, etc. Sometimes, I wonder how is it possible for a living and breathing human being to live through his or her life and never watch such gems of human artistic achievements? Although I am not musically inclined, but the little I know and heard of the music of Mozart and other gifted genius convinced me that they had not live in vain as their music will live eternal until the end of human civilization. I often came across people that tick off having read War and Peace as something they need to do since they heard so much about this masterpiece of world literature (I had also read it by the way). Some people spend vast sums and effort to attempt climbing Mount Everest and many died in their effort as they felt compel to conquer the highest summit in the world. I am more modest and hope to be able to watch more great movies and read more great books in homage to the gifted people who gave human civilization the fruits of their painstaking labor. The book and film-For whom the bell toll are also highly recommended; I had watch the film but had yet to read the novel which I heard was among the favorite of President Obama and his former Republican contender for the Presidency-McCain.

I hope that I have manage to pique the interest of fellow Malaysians to go to youtube and wikipedia and other Internet resources and find out more about this fantastic film. Do not go to your grave without watching this film at least once in your lifetime. Its about democracy and graft and machine politics and idealism, etc. It is a thought provoking, at times, funny and moving film. It will serve to educate the layman about how democracy works in practice and that things are not what it seems in the corridors of power and legislative assemblies. Recently, I manage to catch V for Vendetta on TV which is a updated politically theme film that is rather disturbing to watch...

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Aug 31 2010, 07:57 AM

OVER CREATIVITY...

Creativity is a fine thing but to get carried away in doing highly questionable trick such as adding Fendona into humidifier so as to turn a swiftlet farm into a poison gas chamber... it reminds one of the Holocaust where millions of innocent people were deliberately poisoned inside gas chambers (disguised as shower halls) in concentration camps.

Let make it clear to Harry and anyone who believe in such "cleaver" technique, Fendona is a pesticide which is a form of poison that may not instantly kill animals without backbones; yet accumulation of such poison will certainly affects one health. Not only the nests will be contaminated but the swiftlets will also be effected as well.

I for one have a good deal of respect for Fendona and after, spraying it one feet high above the wall (from the ground level) so as to serve as a barrier to prevent pests from climbing up the walls to the nests areas and also at places where guano accumulate; I would then beat a hasty retreat from the farm.

One should as a matter of course keep the farm relatively clean of guano as piles of them would support all sorts of vermins, pests and bacteria. Putting Fendona into humidifiers for me is akin to lacing a well with poison... don't even think about doing it! Its truly a totally insipid and wacky idea! Perhaps the next brilliant idea is to place a few drops into a cup of coffee so as to detoxify our digestive system.

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Aug 31 2010, 03:12 PM

Hi West Wing and other sifus,

I was wondering how you would do harvesting if a farm have:

100 nests:

200 nests:

300 nests:

400 nests :

500 nests :

600 nests :

700 nests :

800 nests :

900 nests :

1000 nests:

I heard of many who would go up their farms to harvest periodically from 2 weeks or monthly, etc.
There are others who would basically harvest 3 times per year following the swiftlet birth cycle and then they would calculate the average monthly yields by dividing the total kgs oer 12 months.

Many thanks for sharing.

Thanks MOIS and West Wing for your replies.

- Philoswiftlet

I think its civic minded of those veteran farmers with scientific backgrounds to offer their assessment of such highly touted and expensive products for swiftlet farmers. If the people who know what is true or not just keep quiet, then they are inadvertantly helping those con artists. Martin Luther King Jr observed that: “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

My guess is that many were attracted by such testimonies that promise the moon; after all, there is a ready market of swiftlet farmers with poor results in their farms. Its just like conmen sending out advertistment flyers persuading the poor and gullible folks that they can make a fortune by striking 4 digits only if they take advises from monks with spiritual powers to foretell the future; the only requirement is that they must first send thousands of $ to the monks to conduct prayers!

By the way, don't be too ready to believe all the sweet talk about how their powerful sounds can attract hundreds of birds into people farms and make nests; it may or may not be true. Let the buyers beware! The fact is that its very easy to shoot a clip of a farm swarming with birds and then claim its the sound the vendor is selling and also to write fake testimonials/letters of gratitude -- oh thank you sifu for your most wonderful sound in the world...

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Jun 9 2011, 11:15 PM

Sorry was not able access lowyat forum recently. Going back to Benchai's observations that the external and internal sounds are highly important; I think that its certainly true and I agreed with him totally in that respect. What I was refering to was how easy it was to make false representation of a supposedly powerful sound that can attract and draw in the birds. One can easily shoot some footage of a successful farm with lots of birds and advertised that it was the sounds they are selling that is so effective. By the way, I had heard more than once that the internal sound is more important as it will cause birds to stay and make their home in a farm but I think internal and external sounds are equally important and that they are effective only when they work in tandem: to draw in birds and then to keep them there.

Few givers against the multitudes of takers:

Actually, there are some rather informative blogs out there on swiftlet farming although not all the information are of good quality; so I think there are a bunch of giver of information as oppose to the hordes of takers. As this is a free society, there is no compulsion for people to share their ideas with the public and that is how the world works-- many takers and few givers... if only all of us can be half as civic minded as someone like Mother Teresa, then this world would already be an Utopian society in which qualities like considerations, charity, moderation would be the order of the day. However, I hope people will continue to share their ideas and I would like to thank all those who helped to broaden my knowledge of this industry. I would like to add that I do believe in give and take and had in fact given a measure of contributions under different guises to the public so my conscience is clear in this matter.

It seems that our sifu is still plugging his wondrous LP with latest claim of a farm that only had 40 nests reaching 400 nests after one year of continuous LP usage. Previously, the claim was 100+ transforming into 1000+ nests. I think he realized he had chew off more than he can bite with the previous overly fantastic claim which caused so much skeptical feed backs in this forum. In his attempt to push his LP too aggressively, he had over reach the sensibilities of the swiftlet farming community in their tolerance for outrageous claims.

There are many cunning and heartless businessmen out there who would not hesitate to squeeze blood out of stones - note the many poisonous food sold in China for human consumption and now the latest news of such heartless businessmen and women who operated for many years in what used to be thought of as safer Taiwan and also in Malaysia. Perhaps Singapore producers/importers will benefit with their more stringent enforcement of food quality. At least the LP will only hurt the consumers pocketbooks and will not caused their health to deteriorate.

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Jun 17 2011, 01:59 AM

WW is right. While birds can make nests at low ceiling farms such as 7 or 8 feet which certainly makes for easy harvesting because you can just use a stool to reach the planks. I did visited such a farm and helped to harvest the nests. Yet there are negative points for having low ceiling farms. There are in fact very successful farms which are only 7 or 8 feet tall but when the farms are heavily populated, then the areas for the birds to fly around or navigate inside the farm would be congested; just look at the roads in cities and towns that are widen and the addition of flyovers; and many urban areas trying to come to grip with the increasing traffics with conversion of two ways roads into one way roads.... Thus imagine the difficulties of large numbers of birds flying inside the farms every day especially during the morning and evening rush...

Another thing would be the ventilation problem when several thousands of birds are roosting inside a farm; of course one can use ventilation fans to circulate the air to bring in more oxygen and push out the ammonia ladden air which can become poison if a farm is fully occupied but wouldn't it be better to have a larger volume of space inside the farm? Think of too many fish inside a fish tank as an analogy, true, you can pump oxygen in but wouldn't the fishes feel stress when there are too many fishes in a tank or pond?

There was a historical incident back in the 18th century when substantial number of British soldiers and civilians captured by an Indian sultan was imprisoned inside a small dungeon; after their imprisonment overnight, some of the prisoners died from after being crushed and due to lack of oxygen- this hellish prison was known as the black hole of Calcutta. Just think that birds would fly as low as 3 feet from the floor, so if a farm is only 6 feet, it means that there is only so much space for them to fly around and what if there is so many birds that they knocked into each other; such accidents would be deadly to the birds as once they fall to the floor, they would not be able to take off again unless as tuck fook mentioned that they might climb up the walls if they are roughly plastered; so if the walls were smoothly plastered, then sayonara to those birds that were knocked down on to the floor. So, my advise is to build farms that are 10 or 11 feet tall as advised by WW.

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Jun 19 2011, 05:48 PM

Your farm design is like a maze; in fact, a horrendous design. Ayah Embong is right. Junk the partitions! The original entrance is better for smoother access to the floor below; you just need to fine-tune the outer and inner entrance holes.

Advice to swiftlet farmers: Try to have spare amps, spare tweeters and spare timers and other critical components in your farm so that you can do on site repairs. This is especially important if your farms are a long way from home and perhaps in the middle of plantations. I had so many equipments failures over the years that I think this a good advice for fellow farmers. Remember to have all necessary tools in hand during farm visits.

[quote=viruz,Oct 19 2011, 12:30 AM]
The problem is Most Emperors doesn't live long especially the Ming and Qing Dynasty where the BN is brought in to the palace.

There were at least two emperors of the Qing dynasty who lived relatively long life: Emperor Kangxi and his grandson, Chien Loong. If you see the Movie: The Last Emperor, you see that Qing emperors were often taken goof care of. For example, a doctor would examined (observe and smell) the emperor's stool to see if there is anything wrong with his health. Many of the Ming Emperors also lived life of splendor and many often lived relatively long life in comparison with the vast majority of their subjects of which I think the median life span would be less than 40; a Chinese saying goes that its uncommon for a person to live until 70 of age. That was why many Chinese (if they can afford it) married in their teens. In comparison, I think there was a statistic that the average lifespan for a US citizen in 1900 was something like only 20 year old.

I think bird nests is food for royalty due to many reasons: One thing is that they are exotic and from lands far away, and they are difficult to harvest. Which means that they are expensive, and many people associated high price with high quality; note the red nest scams that had done so much harm to this industry due to this reason. Anyway, the most important reason is that many famed Chinese medical practitioners in the long history of Chinese traditional medicine had cited the goodness of birdnests and Chinese traditional medicines had proven their usefullness time and again, whether in the field of treating illness and maintaining good health. Things like acupuncture and bone setting and qigong such as Taichi had proven their effectiveness time and again.

However, coming back to the topic of short lived emperors; yes, many died relatively young (some of them were poisoned) even though they command the best food and medicine; and the highest form of diet is to take food as medicine. I think many emperors died relatively young due to various reasons; they will not live long if they just eat expensive diet like bird nests. Many of them over indulged in reproductive activities with their battalions of concubines and they often do not have enough exercise unlike Emperor Kangxi who appreciated the great outdoors and sometimes even personally led his armies into war. In short, if we were to rely on just consuming bird nests and then live a life of debauchery, then don't expect the bird nests to help us live a long and healthy life. As all medical students are taught when they enter medical school; the first rule is "To do no harm". So do live a moderate life and stay away from smoke, hard liquor, drugs, etc; and don't overexert yourself with the ladies like those emperors not just in China but also in many other kingdoms.

Besides smoking and drinking, so many people are plaque with ill health (also stress) in contemporary society due to unhealthy diet which are high in sugar, salt, oil, cholesterol, transfat. We should be aware of what we put into our mouth as the Chinese saying goes: "Sickness came in via the mouth and troubles came through the mouth (saying stupid things without thinking)". For example, so many people are becoming diabetic which is a huge tragedy personally and for society as a whole. So don't think birdnests is a magic bullet that can cure all our ills if we do not take care of what we eat and do and don't do (exercise).

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Oct 19 2011, 06:19 AM

The fact is that most things need to be promoted in order to increase consumption from a business standpoint; and so many things are using the issue of health as a promotion point whereas I think bird nests certainly have good reasons due to the recommendations by scores of eminent Chinese doctors for the past several centuries. However, good eating is another factor as well in that it has the exotic and the snobbish appeal of it being an expensive and luxurious food item. But I personally think bird nests are good for our health and delicious as well.

This post has been edited by philoswiflet: Oct 21 2011, 04:44 AM

The first nest is the hardest...