Haiyo my farm still haven't completed yet. Working alone max 4-5 hours a day only leh. But I will push to finish within this month. Isn't in August the next breeding season started? This one is the biggest breeding season of the year.
Well even without chirping sound few birds visiting my farm to see the progress everyday There was once after 11pm also got 1 "lost" bird came to see me working.

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Added on June 14, 2007, 12:34 amWhich CD you mean? Got any title I wrote on the CD? Noticed the one labeled "JB" the sound was remix into swifbuild's external chirp CD?
I just got some price quotes from Nest Tech in case anybody interested.

Chirping CDs (Assembling, guiding and bed time) - RM250/piece
Hexagon tweeters - RM1600 / set
Long range tweeter - RM350
Mid range tweeter - RM300
External dual crystal tweeter w/ bird hanging board - RM20/set
Coil tweeter w/ bird hanging board - RM4.80 each (minimum order 50)

These just asked for friend. I'm not going to buy any of these. Mr. Phang's knief quite sharp also. But I ordered the bird hormon already.

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 14 2007, 12:44 AM

swifbuild,

I don't have any CD from Nest Tech. Their boss Mr. Phang has over 400 sets of chirping CDs. He keep the best internal sound for himself. Not for sale. His 4-5 sets of best external sound are for sale. Dr. Chris recent post about progress of his own farm is fantastic. He is using Nest Tech 3 types sound i.e. gathering sound, guiding sound and sweet dream sound. So I think their CDs are good. Filtered by Mr. Phang himself out of over 400 CDs.
You think chirping CDs are stereo or mono? I'm not sure myself but I think it's mono. But what if they're stereo? Mean I'll have to do double wiring for speaker cables.
Today I've sent you an internal sound which I will use in my farm later. Quite good quality. Hissing sound almost unoticeable. Many birds chirping together.
My dog kennel is 5.5 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 3+ feet depth. I've regreted I didn't tell the carpenter I wanted DK with run-way. That time I thought it's quite difficult for them. Turn out they finished it in half a day.
I have a mini roving area just enaugh for the birds to make a turn. 6 feet+ wide only. It's more of a light barrier than a roving area that serve its purpose lah.
OR is best because easily be seen by flying birds but it take up spaces and need water pool. DK if your space limited. But DK the birds will need adaptation period. It's normal for birds to enter new DK and come out straight away. They're scared to go deeper. Given time they will go deeper and deeper.
OR got problem if your area got owls. They can fly in easily. For DK owls basic instinct it will stand at the entrance hole thinking twice to go in or not so I recommend put upward pointing nails or stick thumb tacks there. Once owl stand there it "kena" lah.
If you want to do DK. Do DK with run-way. Cut off lots of lights. Swiftlets also feel safer to lay eggs in the farm coz to them the nesting area not too easily access.

There are these people call the "middle-man" who own or staff of edible bird nest processing companies will come to buy. Some even do the harvesting for you. It's better to harvest yourself and categorise your nests. Price varies a lot among different processing companies.

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Added on June 16, 2007, 1:54 amDK mean Dog Kennel entrance type and OR mean Open Roof type. There's another outdated type call the side window type. Size of entrance hole depend on the total size of farm and which type you're using. Normally a 25x75 to 25x90 entrance hole can be 4'x4' or more. Roving area until now it's still debatable of its existance. For a 25 feet wide farm the roving area should be 25'x10' or 25'x12' like that lah. The roving area is for birds to fly and young birds learn to fly in the farm. People started to build roving area after observing birds came back to farm through CCTV. It's swiftlets intinct to fly around for some time first best hook up to nesting planks/ nests.

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Added on June 16, 2007, 2:01 amActually I only wanted a 4-5 feet runway to cut down more light. You know lah. My farm so small. The light barrier room/mini roving area so small so at nesting area still can see the light barrier room a bit bright. The small run-way will only take up roof top space not inside space.
Oh you spent lots of time listening to chirping CDs. Do you know they're mono or steroe?

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 16 2007, 02:01 AM

I've tested converted all my CD collection into WAV file. The sound editor indicates they're all mono. Both channels identical waveform. So I don't need to do double wiring for left and right channel.

No idea how many watt the piezo tweeter. Should be lower than coil tweeter because the design is very simple. I'm in process of intalling internal tweeters now. 1 row 8 tweeters. Distance between rows is 48 inches. First row piezo, 2nd row coil 3rd row piezo and so on. See which row got the most shit.

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 19 2007, 01:56 PM

Personally I don't recommend to contruct wooden farm as I'm doing one now. Too many works to be done. Cons of wooden farms:
1) Heat easily go in. Both radiant heat and conductive heat. Need lots of ventilation, heat insulation and exhaust fan.
2) Security easily breach when u got some results.
3) Sound proofing no good. Outside sound easily come in and internal sound easily heard by nearby neighbours.
4) Pests problems. Rats, termintes etc.
5) Cannot use open roof top entrance.
6) Cannot use ceiling nozzle type mist sprinkler.
7) Strong wind can shatter the building.
etc etc.

10kg every month for wooden farm is very impressive indeed. The farm builder would have even better results if concrete farm. Wooden farm will have birds but the effort to achieve good results is double or tripple of a concrete farm. My farm testing out double poultry humidifier and hygrostat today. Everything seems ok when started. Then I went for dinner and some shopping. Went back almost every joint of rubber pipes and nozzles are dripping water. Added few rounds of teflon tapes to nozzles and retighten the metal clips with hand drill with higher force. Now leaving water pressure on overnight see if it will leak again. Humidifiers are auto off by hygrostat due to humidity reached 85%RH at night. Tomorrow off day so will install mid range, long range and guiding tweeters at entrance hole. Now I got improved version of mid and long range tweeters. Running on "dual core" tweeters each. With rain water drain holes drilled at bottom of tweeters. Front part of 4" PVC were enlarged into a bigger cone shape. This can be done by heating up the joint part of PVC pipe above cooking stove to soften the PVC then enlarge it with a cone shape thing. In my case I used plastic flower pot to enlarge the hole. Front part also cover by chicken fence net to prevent "history" repeat.
My friend new farm is using 2 of my long range tweeters. The farm will open next week. When sound test birds trying to charge into the 4" PVCs. Even 10 minutes after sound off still got bird try to grap on the net in front of the PVC.

P/S my supplier still got stock a few units of hygrostat selling cheap. @RM350 each in case anyone interested. The readings are very accurate. Same reading for RH and temperate at my digital hygrometer/thermometer. Accuracy range is +-3%. Come with 3meter sensor. My sensor nailed to nesting plank for best results. See how much this consultant site selling: http://www.geocities.com/markindo88/controller.html

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 22 2007, 03:26 AM

External and guiding tweeters completed. Will only use 2 x junkyard long range tweeters for outside DK. 1 is 2 feet another is 1' 9 inches. Have to reduce length due to installation problem. Then 3 tweeters at corners of DK base pointing diagonal to entrance holes. Further down is my light barrier room with 3x tweeters to guide birds into nesting area.
For nesting area. Internal chirp fuyooh 1 channel 40 tweters 2nd channel 24 tweeters. Maybe too many but I would like to have the choice to operate at lower volume. Since I read birds like to lepak at tweeter places so I give them more lepak spots lah. At same volume level piezo is louder than coil but coil is more realistic to listen. Since coil tarik more power so I added 100v capacitors to the positive point as condenser.
Now work jam lah waiting for corner boards and hormone from Mr. Phang's company. Paid them 13/6 until today 23/6 still haven't arrived my joint order with fren for corner boards, artificial nests and 2 bottle hormone. My internal tweeters are screw to corner boards so without enaugh corner boards I still have over 20 tweeters hanging on wires. 4 times ordered from them. Every time also delay over 1 week .
These 2 days raining. Found got roof leaking. Not very teruk but October raining season will become teruk lah. These climb up stiff roof dangerous job must hire professional lor.

I forgot Crystal also have treated corner boards. Cheaper some more. NT selling at RM3.80/piece. Totally I bought 3 batches from them. The 2nd batch better cutting quality and smell a lot stronger because now they will only process the board when got order never keep stock. So the smell stronger. I only bought Crystal's E-Book but their customer service really good. Very professional. My internal chirp alone 64 tweeters. Guidance 6 tweeters and each long range got 2 tweeters inside. Total 74 for now.
My nail gun also cannot spear through concrete. Wood no problem. Why don't u drill holes on wall and put wall plugs then planks mount on wall with "L" shape steel bracket?
I don't have sprinkler in the farm. I have 2 units of poultry humidifiers controlled by hygrostat. On at 79%RH off at 84%RH. 2 sprinklers at roof top because mine are zinc roof very hot. That's controlled by timer on at 11:30am off at 6pm. In between it run for 10 minutes then rest 10 minutes.

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 23 2007, 11:51 PM

If weihow's neighbour succeeded in attracting all his birds by knowing what he's been using in his farm is not a good sign. But I'm curious how his neighbour counter attack by knowing his farm. If he can do it mean he's good lah. Competition is fierce out there. We can't afford to make mistake. It's true we shouldn't reveal further more detail about our own farm here.

IMO the birds are Aerodramus Maximus. The black nest swiftlets. Judging from the feathers on the legs. It's very kind heart of you to keep them until they can fly. I hope they will live until can fly. They're not easy to handle. You can feed them dead ants or pet shop worms. Feed 5 times a day. Try to let them sleep in half cup shape thing. Sleep time put them together to keep warm. Temperature try not lower than 28. They'll feel safer in farely dark place. If you have problem keeping them alive try to surrender them to Jabatan Haiwan. They might have the knowledge in looking after the birds.

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jun 29 2007, 12:03 AM

May I ask the birds still ok? Actually your main problem is the type of food the bird willing to eat. Mosquitos will be better food but problem catching them. If they're willing to eat whenever you feed. Then chances of surviving is high.

swifbuild,

My farm now 7788 already. Left some electrical works. Turn 3 normal points to timer controlled points and 1 exhaust fan then ready to go after PW sprayed. You got bigger mailbox email? I got some video clips to send u.

Hi wahoowahi, may I know how you deal with white ants problem? My farm is wood flooring so I scare will need to face this problem. That place long time ago got infested with white ants now gone. But scare they will come back again. Please advice. 8 hours drive to reach K.Krai walaueh I guess you 're in Gua Musang? 8 hours from here can reach KL already.

83%RH to 92%RH what type of humidifying system you're using? Mine controlled by hygrostat. Sensor high up on nesting plank. When nesting plank area reach 85%RH places below it already reach 95%RF very foggy. So now I set it to on at 70% and off at 75%RH.

It's easy to get high RH but just adding more humidifier. To me 95%RH is too high. Might cause nesting plank fungus or nests too wet turn yellowish. In fact stable and just enaugh RH is the aim. My farm is at river side. So at midnight can reach max 90%RF without humidifier. Humidifier is only on when needed by hygrostat. Use of humidifier is a must during hot weather. For this river side farm I must be ready for white ant problem. With or without humdifier at midnight RH still very high. As long as can 100% solve the problem RM1500 is a reasonable price to pay.

Hi kseng_99 welcome to the forum. Are you currently running swiftlet farm? A successful farm house is very complicated to achieve. The same method use in a successful farm may not be useful to another farm that's the problem. No standard A-Z method. Lots of time to monitor, analyse and make changes to imporve.
Personally I would vote for sound more important than smell because you'll need sound to attract the birds to come before they can smell the scent. There are no significant proof that smell would give much advantage. Without sound for a new farm no bird will come at all. Is smell more important than in farm micro habitat? Definitely not.

kseng_99 how long your relatives' farm being operating? How bad's the result? Sometimes everything we've done is right but still so so result only. Many people do not see the importance of competition. Well there're people think open a new farm near successful farms is a good thing. e.g. 50meter away from a monthly 10kg result farm. To me that's a huge disadvantage. A farm can produce 10kg monthly mean it's good in almost everything. Are you confident enaugh to attract the birds over?? Is your farm higher altitute and better micro habitat than the 10kg farm? If not better be worry lor. There'll be problem even to attract your first batch of bird to stay. Most successful farms are pioneers of the area or lone operators of the area.

CD exchange days are over. Because we don't want too many people using same type of chirping sound. It's not good.

No bird stay? Or no bird go inside? Or no bird even come to play outside? Is there bird shit on the wall or on the floor?

Pop quiz: Can a 2 weeks old farm be stayed by over 100 birds in 1 night? For the past 2 weeks no birds even come play near external tweeters. But after that special night. Now everyday also got birds play at external tweeter. That special night is when over 100 birds stayed overnight for 1 night. Seen with my own eyes that evening so many birds rushed into the new farm to stay for 1 night. Anyone got answer what that special situation?

1 year old 0 nest 0 bird staying got something wrong already. Better do something. From my earlier posts you can sort of get some basic info to analyse your problem. AF only 1 type. Indonesia commonly use AF and common swift(grass swiftlet) joint farming method so the sound you bought "MAY" contain common swift sound which is not suitable for farming in Malaysia. There are subspecies of Aerodramus family but the others are either not available in Malaysia or like A.Maximus only lives in caves. Only AF and grass stay in farm house.

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Added on July 13, 2007, 8:36 pmActually the situation happened was sudden very strong wind. All the swiftlet came out for food during the rain. Suddenly wind became so strong they can't even fly properly. So all rush to nearest farm to stay overnight. AF has no problem flying in heavy rain but not strong wind.

This post has been edited by seeseng: Jul 13 2007, 08:36 PM

My farm within these few days can open. Now cleaning up and clearing out my tools and stuff. Lots of birds also mean fierce competition. Will keep you guys update on the outcome.