I won’t be selling it off, because it’s my own shop, and it’s generating profit , just need to upgrade and maintain it . Yea it takes effort , I’m still learning .

Ohh, that's great as well. At least it's generating profits. After improving & maintaining the BH, the number of nests might increase too.


BTW anyone knows if the likes of Eu Yan Sang, Soon Thye Hang, Mega Herbs etc farm their own nests or buys from BH owners?

i've only used ammonia powder when i started a brand new BH, where there is zero birds..instead of using birdshit i use ammonia powder instead - cleaner!
There is no use for ammonia powder now as my birds shit smell already pollute the whole room & i water spray timed it to activate shit aroma & UP humidity

This post has been edited by J_Vansen_S: Jan 15 2020, 04:26 PM

The purpose of ammonia powder is to imitate fresh bird shit smell in a new bh also to cover up new cement smell. If u already have fresh bird droppings from in house birds you don't need ammonia powder. Unless there's some new cement work recently done.

Hi guys. This is first time I'm posting here after I took few days reading whole V4 thread. Well yeah, considering I'm quite zero knowledge in this and taking over my late dad business. I've a lot question on my head, hopefully can learn from sifu over here.

Just a simple info whereby the BH is located at Mukah, Sarawak. The BH were build based on "feeling" rather than some technical knowledge as consideration and there total 5 BH within 500m radius haha.
Age of BH = 13 months
Size = 65x25ft. Only use upper level.
Temperature = 28~35 DegreeC (roughly. Going to install smart monitoring system)
Humidity = < 70% RH (no humidifier installed)
Inner sound level = 60~70dB (research say 40~60dB for inner and 70~80dB for outer)
Nest less than 20, birds < 30

Few issues that I suspected causing low occupancy. Such as wiring, temperature, humidity and sound level.

Let me do further reading and will ask at here accordingly. Cheers

My 2 cent: temperature fluctuate too much.

Yeah, agreed on that. Plus humidity too.

Your humidity seems ok but you can experiment around. If too low, the nest will dry up during constructing stage & fall off aka nest can’t stick onto the wall & the parents will abandon. If it’s too high, the nest & wood will grow moldy.

I plan to put 1-2 Humidifier that I found in Shopee and monitor the temperature & humidity. I believe humidifier does help to improve temperature & it's consistency but have to take care about mold issues. Objectively, to achieve temperature range 26~32 and humidity 70~80% RH right?

Humidifier that I found Nestpro HM6000
Not sure good or not.

As for internal sound, I found there is one side sound much lower (50~60dB) compared to one side (60~70) although it come from same amplifier. Most nest located at lower sound side. I suspect due to wiring issue that causing voltage drop in the circuit.

Malaysia has at least 2 seasons; dry season & wet season. So you need to regularly adjust your birdhouse accordingly to those factors in order to maintain an ideal temperature & humidity. You can get the humidifier if it gets too dry during the dry season. But you might wanna consider other alternatives such as having some controlled ventilation. It's normally easy to increase humidity, but it's hard to reduce humidity. So try to avoid doing things that solves your problem this season but gives you a lot of problem next season.

I see. Does this 2 season made the BH condition fluctuate drastically?
Based on my observation, seem there is high & low season for swiftlet make it nest.

Monsoon season, raining everyday while dry season rain once in a while. Surely it'll affect the BH's condition. That's why need to adjust accordingly depending on situation.

During monsoon season, all the swiftlets fly away so don't expect swiftlets to lay their eggs. As for time of harvesting, it used to be 3 times a year until the farmers got greedy and harvest before eyggs are lay or throw away eggs before fledgling making harvesting no longer based on the timing but on the availability of birdnests. Many farmers harvest up to 6 times a year wanting the whitest nests getting best price from buyers. Doing so destroy the cycle of production of nests causing serious reduction of nests and Malaysia experiences a huge decline of nests as old birds die without new birds replacing the old birds.

As responsible farmers in the trade, we must be looking for better future and not present gains or demands as thus isn't like cattle farming which we can buy our future stocks and fully depend on God's will and blessings. As birds get lesser due to overharvest and poor weather, swiftlets tend to migrate to better area to build their families especially to remote areas or to neighbouring countries where there, the farmers are doing what we did more than 30 years ago. Then, we were pratically preserving and protector of swiftlets and the responds were very Good to the farmers.

We experienced 2 fold of nest in less than a year and a bird house could easily reached 1K nests within 3 years. Those days, I encourage all to build birdhouses but now, I advice all not to waste their money in this industry. We used to have this phase. We take care of our children for 20 years but they cannot take care of us for 10 years. We take care of the birds for 3 years, they take care of us for the rest of our life.

This post has been edited by West Wing: Mar 2 2020, 07:52 PM

This is true. many ranchers now havesting white nest (unused). This situation is bad for the industry. I heard of many stories of sharp decline due to excessive harvesting. "encouraged" to harvest WHITE nests. I avoid white nests. my buyers always complain, why you dont have white nest.

But nothing much we can do, their house, theirs way. We can only advise.

Anyone here is Swiftlet Eco Park scheme investors?

Hi, Anyone using bazooka tweeter? hows the result?
ordered 2 pcs.
Any advise or experience, please share with me.
Thanks in advance.

How profitable is it to have bird houses? Better than owning land with rubber trees or palm oil?

Hi guys, am seriously considering looking for land and build a BH for investment.

Looking at miri and surrounding areas. I can buy native land.

Anyone here from miri? Looking at bekenu at the moment.

Is bekenu ok for swiftlet farming?

I want to comment about white nest vs slight yellow nest. As a processor for 6 years myself.

White nest is very clean. There isnt much black spot inside the strain. The legs (yan jiao) is very thin also. So when we process, there is less yan jiao to be cut off. Generally white less total wastage will be 5-7% lower than slight yellow counterpart.

Slight yellow nest inside quite dirty. A piece of this raw sometimes weight about 14g, after process 8g. Can you imagine the wastage here.

If white raw is rm300 more expensive, i rather take the white nest.

I have around 6kg of bird nests (mixed grade A,B,C).

Anybody interested to buy. Offer me your price. PM me for details such as photos and condition.