Like all 'exotic' things, when they are hard to come by, it fetches top prices.
It becomes commodity once everyone Tom, d*** & Harry is producing it.
Siapa cepat dia dapat-lah.

Empurau Farming, you need to build your farm near mountain stream using gravity feed to circulate the pond.

Sabah is ideal with lots of mountain streams. Not many PPL have excess to this type of environments so over production is unlikely.

This leaves the market for BH owners to farm them in small scale under their BH or near their BH in tanks and recycled water.

Can also plant cash crop such as Dragon to sustain your operation cost and Gaharu as medium term investment. Your live in worker served as security.

Not to be shellfish we can share and encourage nearby farmers to participate and uplift their livelihood.

Sabah has thousands of tourists. Why keep the fish for 2 years? Market them at 1 year old and around 1 kg (plate size) as life fish to the numerous Sea Food restaurants in the city.

I think Empurau can compete with seven star Grouper selling at RM150 per Kg. Lau Su Pan RM 200 per Kg. and Hai Li RM200 per KG.

Bird Nest is for long term investments.

This is an Eco-Friendly alternative farming method. Think about it.

The rotate & zoom IR camera is over kill and not practical in BH environment. The cost of a remote rotating and zooming high end IR camera can be equivalent to several units of standard IR camera, therefore it make more sense to install 4 standard IR cam at 4 diff locations and view it 4 channels simultaneously in one screen.
As for you fantasized camera on remote controlled car, my prediction is....sekali you touch the joystick abit, your screen immediately display an unfocused wall...then you touch again, the display show another dunno what blur image.....touch again....got the target but senget pulak Got this experience when adjusting and tilting IR camera in my BH.

Thanks, I thought it was the work of lizard.

This post has been edited by aeiou228: Feb 1 2010, 12:13 PM

Great that we have Benchai around and so now we know how to keep us going while waiting for our dream BH to become a reality.....even after that, we will have free fertilizer and none will be wasted including the dirty water from the BH for watering the plants.....and Ben, may all your plants grow healthy and plentiful with the waste from the BH........and may the fishes grow up to giants with it, too.

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Added on February 1, 2010, 12:45 pmGood recommendation. Since you are a expert in electronics, may I ask the followings.

Do infra ray camera or ultrasonic oscillation of a ultrasonic humidifier disturb the bird in any way?

Or any Sifu in the field can pls. advice.

This post has been edited by West Wing: Feb 1 2010, 12:45 PM

investor looking for swiftlet house to buy or any agriculture farm . possible to post it here as most garage sales were meant for electronics and consumer goods. While property are just for properties. I thought if anyone may have any seller to recommend. pls pm me.

places they are interested are in tangkak,johor or sitiawan.

Uncle WW,
IR
I am lost when we come to electronics per se, but 2yrs or so ago I did dwell into Night Vision Devices for a while.
Most IR devices are at the wavelength where it is near-invisible to the human eye.
I said near-invisible cos' there must be a efficiency compromise for the picture tube. (Picture tubes work better in the visible spectrum.)
In essence, the manufacturer can make it invisble to the human eye but the picture tube that picks up the image works less efficiently.
You can check this out if anyone has a NVD , turn it on and view from the side of the IR source (there is a red tinge which is visible).
PLS do not view directly into IR source, it may damage yr eye sight. The last I recall there were Chinese cos who were beginning to make totally invisble IR cameras for CCTVs. Also the picture tube is slowly giving way to CCD, CMOS whcih will bring down the overall cost eventually.

As to yr question if there is any effect on birds? I did a quick query here below.
http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/17B.html
Seems there is still many gaps in our understanding of bird vision.
Only thing certain is that birds posses more sophisticated vision than human.
Also there is a mention of nocturnal birds like owls may have sensitivity to IR.
This brings up an opportunity...can we turn on a IR light source to keep owls away?
If it works will certainly be advantageous to a spot light in terms of power consumption for folks off the power grid & on alternative power source like solar power or wind power.

Ultrasonic
I havent done any research on this. BUt my gut feel is that since swiftlets uses echolation which is sound wave, ultrasonic MAY have an effect.
Just my gut feel. Need more research.

My 2 bits.

I'm no expert in electronics but just sharing my experience here.
The IR camera will auto switch to Infra Red mode when the surrounding is dark enough. From our naked eyes, we can't see the IR ray accept the LED's red dots in the IR camera. The birds never bother about the existence of IR camera in my BH.
As for the ultrasonic humidifier, I didn't use it, can't offer any comment about it.

Hi everyone, I am new here so just a brief introduction... I am located in Kuching, Sarawak and just came back to the country in June last year after 15 years in New Zealand.

Currently looking seriously at swiftlet farming and have been doing research for the past few months... a lot of information on the internet which helps newbies like me!

I have been looking at agricultural land for sale and have tested a few birdcalls in the area and have had mixed results. Some areas with no birds at all... but came across a piece of land which is in the flying path of the swiftlets and also has plantations where the swiftlets feed, but the land is peat and building an access road plus the piling for foundations would cost quite a bit... so still considering whether to go ahead.

Look forward to getting to know everyone here better and learning and also sharing experiences!

Cheers!

Welcome Ahchard, as there are plenty to go around and more BHs will produce more new birds. Ask politely here and you will get your answers as many Sifus around.

Someone did asked me of this question and why recently no many new birds seem to be playing these days. I just pointed to one very successful BH having over 10K nests and told him that if that BH allows his birds to reproduce and in one year (3 times), the number of birds fledged will be 60,000 new birds. But the sad story is that since he paid so much for that BH and wish to get his investment in the shortest time possible ( possibility losing if the government does not allow the town BHs to stay in near future), he harvested 6 times in a year and so, you see the picture.

If what you are looking for just a hundred birds during the first year, theoretically, it should be very easy as that particular BH will be able to fulfill and satisfied over 500 BHs in a year.......................... again as always, it is just my opinions on the above matter.

Hi Ahcard, welcome. I'm new myself. Glad to meet you. Nice to have more newbies.

Hi all Sifu,

Test Call, what is a successful test call? What is a good time to do a test call? I do not have access to the highest point (no road access), is it ok to do a test at mid height of the land? The land slope down (slight) from a hill. Shall try to get some pics.

The said land is on a small hill (hill top facing west), rectangular, slopping down towards East, ending with a pond and a small stream (end of the land running North to South). Land is planted with young rubber tress (maybe 1~2 yrs). Wondering when the tress grow tall, will it affect the BH?

Managed to download some test call sound, edited it to 20 mins, converted it to audio format and burnned onto a cd, @ $1.30 (spoiled 1, so = $2.60). Bought 2 tweeters @ $6.00 each, 5M cable @ $2.50 couple of crocodile clips $2.00. 2 capacitor @ $0.40. Did some soldering.
Total cost $29.90

Wish me luck
Cheers
Raymond

Successful test call is when a cloud of birds circulating in the sky on top of the test call site.Best time to test is in the evening. There are a lot of test call videos in youtube. the most famous one is this:


This post has been edited by aeiou228: Feb 1 2010, 11:41 PM

I am not looking for a get rich quick scheme... I am looking at this as a long term investment... I wouldn't mind not harvesting for the first 2 years even.... If I could get 300 nests by year 3 I would be happy...

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Added on February 2, 2010, 10:40 amHi Raymondetc...

Let us know how the birdcall goes... When I did mine there were not a lot of birds that came in groups and lingered around... but there were birds flying past... and circling a while... then flying off... I tested for about 30 mins to an hour and birds kept appearing... flying past... in the morning they fly east... out to the sea... and in the evening they fly west... back home...

Seems like ur case is similar to mine where there is no road access to the land... make sure you check that it will not cost an arm and a leg to build the road...

This post has been edited by ahchard: Feb 2 2010, 10:40 AM

what method can we use to deter owl from attacking the swiftlet. Some said, shoot to kill. any better solution than killing the owl?

I have seen some owl deterrant stuff for sale... one is the sharp spikes to put at the BH entrance hole, another is electric wiring to give them a shock... both work when the owl perches on the BH entrance... then I read somewhere about putting something like fishing line at the BH entrance like window grill, wide enough for swiftlets to fly through but not for owls...

But if you are talking about owls attacking swiftlets outside the BH... then I guess u have to shoot to kill... =P

thanks but i feel the swiftlet might also be the victim of it as well . do u think so?

The experts could probably shed more light... but I think because the swiftlets don't perch... plus they use their sound echo location ( dunno wat its called ) so my guess is they can detect and avoid these thing???

Smart & sustainable. Unfortunately the land i have access to has a small steam that conjoins a larger stream a few hundred meters downstream... and the water quality... can't compare it to Sabah highland streams. Different league of purity, Sabah & Sarawak are blessed. What Uncle Ben mentioned is exactly the 'fantasy' or dream i've always had... a self sustainable eco-friendly agriculture industry involving the locality. Agriculture should be community based (this is what developed countries have been doing for centuries).

aeiou228, thanks for the advice, i'm looking at the specks for normal IR cams. I'm interested in documenting a list of stuff which warrants a good quality cam with good visibility... the reason i wanted one that can rotate and zoom is because i want to observe different locations as well. ex/ how long does the male/female adult take turns incubating, when exactly do the chicks start exercising their wings, how much progress of nest making is done within a day, how do the birds react when the mist system is activated at a different time, is it possible to catch the culprits that eat/kill chicks/eggs in action, is there any interesting behavior these birds have for example competing for preferred nesting areas ... macam2.

ahcard, yes, its called echolocation... more or less similar of that of bats. You can read bits and pieces here;

http://faculty.smcm.edu/jjprice/PDFs/Price...t%20al.2004.PDF

with regards to this, some people advise the interior of standalone units to be plastered (to increase echoing & sounds reflection) since the smoother the surface, the better the reflection. But then again, siapa pernah masuk gua yang interior dia smooth? Owls... i do not agree they be shot. Its better to trap and relocate... or get some avian advice from relevant authorities. We sometimes see in Indonesia they fix mata gergaji, broken pieces pf glass at the entry holes (also could be to repel HUMANs as well) to repel owls. I have only seen swiftlets slightly perching/momentarily stopping on entry holes... ONLY in new BH's where they are checking out the premise.

I have a discussion based on observation. I observed over the past year that the birds in KT, during their flight to feeding grounds in the morning & on the way back in the evenings... they fly as low as 15-20ft above the ground. I've seen some even flying less than that. You can easily see this from traffic light losong-kuala berang (nearby giant) and all along the road to kuala berang (i have this assumption their feeding ground would be along the main river, from pulau rusa-serada-kubang bujuk-bkt payung-telemung-kuala berang). Hundreds and thousands of birds. It makes me mad and envious. Sakit hati tengok since the location i'm building (different state)... the lowest flying bird without audio would be a few hundred feet, only when audio is on do they fly lower and circle around in curiosity. Uncle did mention that the KT BH's are experiencing slow growth... overpopulation? The ones i've visited in bkt payung are impressive, even though aged less than 2 years. Location... location & land acces... sobsobsob.

Is it true that Tangkak is the breeding ground for Swiftlet? I intent to go there and take a look there for finding a new Bird house soon. other place i may go down to look around is in sitiawan as i heard many houses were there.

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Added on February 2, 2010, 6:02 pmanyone need CCTV camera like IR camera can get it from me as im a dealer in taiwanese brand.
let me know your specs and requirement and i can help u to get .

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Added on February 2, 2010, 6:11 pmwhat is this website for when we cannot even login http://burungwalit.com.my/login.php

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Added on February 2, 2010, 6:53 pmhttp://yenyen-swiftlet-farming.blogspot.com/2009/09/bad-new-for-swiftlet-farmer-in-melaka.html#comment-form

Is this good or bad story?

This post has been edited by hackwire: Feb 2 2010, 06:53 PM

No luck. Less than 10 birds. Have to start looking for another land.

Are you sure the sound you played is the stress sound in the 1st place ? Stress sounds are sharp and high pitch.

Sounds to me 2 scenarios here
1)Owls getting into BH and...disaster
2)Owls attacking swiftlets in mid flight into/out of BH

I recall someone mention long ago (maybe V1) trees around standalone BH that encourage owls
That is borne out by watching TV-lah..they stay (in the trees, where else?) within sight of he prey for a while before they attack.

Other than deterrence at the LMB with spikes, electric fences, fishing line (also heard some attach treble hooks on the fishing line).
I am wondering the feasibility of wrapping/hanging old trawler nets around the tree foliage closest to the LMB.
This was used by a friend who runs a fish farm to capture wildboar digging up the pond bunds. They merely hang up the nets on bamboo loosely. Upon contact the whole net collapses and the boar is soon wrapped up and the boar is given a good lecture and released...into the pot.
This of course if you sayang the tree and not want to cut it down, the other is to ensure no trees around the LMB.
Can work? This friend mentioned that he purchases the nets for abt Rm30 per bag. Old-about-to-be-discarded, need to do some repair-lah! Buy cheap monofilament fishing lines from yr local tackle shop to do the repair. Once the owls are caught in the net, you retrieve and decide it's fate. They're abt 4x4 inches so only bigger birds (like turkey, goose or maybe missing jet engines) will get entangled.

Say... do owls attack the swiftlets or get into the BH during th day?

The only owls I have sighted now a days (other than on TV) were during the day.
As a kid I used to lastik (catapult) them at night with my old man holding the torch light as my old man believes it will bring death in the family if left alone.
my 2 bits.

Also I think, the internal sound attarcts them owls.
When I was playing with sounds at home I attracted crows, they are thieving predators too.

This post has been edited by Cergau: Feb 3 2010, 12:58 AM