Poked from all sides!

This evening the Kedah BH owners should consider lucky and be happy that the Kedah MB and the Excos have today shot down the latest drafted Garis Panduan on the Licensing of the Kedah BHs proposed by the PERANCANG DEPT to be passed through in this morning state meeting. The drafted Garis Panduan is almost the same with only little changes from the last time the one proposed by the PERANCANG FEDERAL. If this goes through, every BH in Kedah would have to close shop. And that is going to be NIGHTMARE for other states as well. The PERANCANG DEPT of state is under the control of the Federal Govt (BARISAN NASIONAL). The MB was very angry with the proposal and ordered it be revamped to painless level. He further instructed the PERANCANG DEPT must consult the BH representatives with their agreement and approval first before tabling for meeting again. So far, the DEPT despites advised previously to discuss with the representatives but they failed to do that till today. The UMNO never learns and still trying to sabotage from behind. It serves them right to lose all the BY-ELECTIONS. Thanks to the Kedah PR Govt who has the people in its heart. Also not forgetting DL and his Taskforce who have been keeping track and monitoring the situation closely.


Isn’t that at least a GOOD NEWS for the BH industry for the time being? We are having too many bad news lately.

(Quote Lucas 1, Lowyat forum dated 24th Apr 09)

Looks like the captain aspires to travel around the world, but the crews still navigating and going round in circle, what a joke!

We are not getting anywhere....sad but true....

I am too tired to witness the similar episodes occurring again and again.

It's just driving me crazy when thinking of wasting unnecessary time to have all the ignorant parties buy-in about the potential of this industry.

Politic is a way things get done, not going backward, things get stuck and nothing is done.

We are not welcome and we are the toxic. Sometimes we are ill-treated as if we are the enemy of the state! Why the arrows are always pointing inward instead of pointing outward? BH farmers are like punching ball always get wounded by all kind of attacks and harassment, due to some people's hidden agendas, anger, jealousy, envy, or whatever.

BH farmers are ordinary citizens & should deal only with the birds and the BH micros. Looks like now it leaves us no choice but to force us start dealing more with politics, so that we can really benefit from our country's resources and get the most milage out of this trade.

BH farmers do not demand a lot, just a pat on the shoulder, being receptive and supportive, we will be contented. All the encouragement given will be highly appreciated until end of the time!

Noise! Noise! Noise!

It is a terrible experience having to endure daily the incessant bird noises broadcast from the BH’s loudspeakers.

Noise is the most common public complaint of nuisance received by the local authorities. It contributes almost 90% of the total complaints arisen from the swiftlet farming activity in towns.

Under the stressing and repeated noise, people will go crazy and irrational. If the unbearable situation has exceeded their nose, it is not surprising if they dare to burn down your BH or do harm to your property.

Needless to say, this is due to the inconsiderate attitude of some BH owners. They direct the external speakers wrongly to their neighbours and blasting the recorded bird-luring sound at high volume, twenty four seven.

How can this unscrupulous action be accepted by your neighbours? Unless they are superhuman or saint or they are totally deaf, other wise, can you expect your non-stop bird sound goes unnoticed & will not arouse complaint? Do you think your neighbor will cooperate nicely & live peacefully under this kind of environment without having a grudge against you?

Put yourself in their shoes. Think of your family first before you really need to do so. Do you want others do the same onto you? As a caring person, you have many options to get thing done! You can control the sound level, the amplitude and sound-playing duration. You do not need to switch on the sound track if your birds are not around. By switching off the sound at certain hours in a day, will save your electricity bill as well as indirectly do your part in saving the earth and this I believe, will make your neighbors’ lives happier. It is a win-win situation.

Be professional farming!

For professional ranchers, they would direct the speakers skyward (in an angle more than 45 degree) with tolerable volume to the extent that even their neighbours may not aware of. They also would switch on the external sound and control it with timer from 8am to 8pm only. A friend of mine from Medan even switches on the sound between 5pm to 8pm only.

Do not enjoy your harvest at the expense of your neighbours.

Do not let the selfishness affect the good name of this industry. Jealous people may capitalize on this to influence the authorities to shut down all town BHs in whole Malaysia.

Do not let the short-sightedness dampen the growth of this entire industry and affect the survival of your fellow ranchers

Just do not let the unkind deed take away our dreams.

Enough said.

Standalone BH in Pantai Cermin, Medan

I think I can't find any other place like this in Malaysia.

The standalone farm here is constructed on an agriculture farmland in the village, but it is surrounded by residential houses.

It is definitely not town BH (shop lot type), nor is it similar to our typical standalone. Our standalone BH mostly located very far away from the residential areas.

I think it should be aptly called village or kampung standalone BH.

The ranchers are brilliant to have built their BHs here, given that :

1) the homing instinct of the swiftlets and 2) technically the birds like to stay close to human community cause they feel safe, protected and not susceptible to the predators. 3) concentrated and abundant food source could be found in this region.

Metamorphosis - from old school of thought to new one

From my own personal study and research, there are generally two schools of thought in swiftlet farming i.e the traditional old and the high-tech orientated new. The former is originated from Indonesia and have been practised by our Malaysian pioneers for more than a decade. The latter's history is less than 5 years. It’s kind of metamorphosis, evolving and transforming from the old teaching with the aim to improve upon it. Somehow the recent development taken place has gone so far until we doubt it really capable of bringing us to the next higher level in producing cost-efficient yet successful BH.

Conventional gurus do not emphasize much on using humidifier, hygrostat, aroma, corner board, and any other costly & high-maintenance-cost apparatus & equipment. They stress more on the importance of "design" whereas high-tech sifus are on the contrary. High-tech sifus always claim and believe that with the aid of advanced technology, we can achieve fast and good result within a shorter duration. Question is: how reliable will be the new technology and products? Given that some of them are still under pilot-testing period and will they bring about adverse effect to the BH? That is for the BH owners to find out from time to time.

However, personally I feel that old concept does not mean that it is obsolete and slow in producing promising result. It exhibits value engineering, optimization of materials and enhancement of BH by taking into account of all existing circumstances & conditions of the BH. Apart from these, there are quite a lot of differences which I am unable to describe in detail. Will share with you if time permits.

Traditional & high-tech sifus cannot & will not sit down together and see eyes to eyes among themselves. However, for the sake of "cari makan", all does obey to one unwritten or implied rule that no one will put sand to other's rice bowls, everyone will have their piece of cake, you have yours and I have mine. As a result of this, you will not be surprised to find out that all these years so many newbies were taken for a ride and yet hardly righteous and truthful sifu dare to stand out to stop those black hats and their wrong-practices.

For me, I feel comfortable to choose to follow the middle path. I do not advocate the extremes. It is just like the principle of cooking, too much salt and sugar will spoil the good taste of food.

I will give importance to the BH design, will use bird shit but not aroma, will use fake nest but not corner board, will use humidifier but not costly misty humidifier, will use timer but not hygrostat, will clean the BH with water but not ammonia (conventional sifu does not even clean the BH at all-they just sweep with broom only), will use hygrometer but not infra red thermometer, will not use expensive insulation material unless really necessary, and so on.

I have my own justifiable reasons to all the above. I do not follow 100% the old guards’ teaching, but I agree that they are better than the high-tech sifus, at least they do not force newbies use purposeless equipment and they show more willingness to share the knowledge than the latter, which are more of "no money no talk".

Again the above is just my own personal findings and views. All offence is unintended. It is for fun reading. Hope you will find it useful.

Trip to Medan - searching for my dream BH!

Yesterday I visited a small town, Pantai Cermin, which is located near to the sea and about one and a half hour's journey from Medan.

Words could not describe how excited was I the moment the unique standalone BHs in Kota Pari met my eyes....

While enjoying the breathtaking "kampung" scenery cruising about in the "mobil", my heart is going after the bird-luring sound sent out from the BHs which could be heard clearly about 1 km away.... These BHs are very eye-catching, not in terms of their size, but their design and facade.















Most of the standalone BHs in Pantai Cermin share the followings in common:

1) The entrance holes are 100% dog kennel type. (According to the local ranchers, the OR type also can be found in town BHs in Perbaungan & Simpang Tiga)

2) The entrance holes are not very big, ranging from 2 ft x 1.5 ft to maximum 3 ft x 3 ft.

3) Entrance holes were provided at every directions but all sealed once the best hole is chosen.

4) Have a water pond on the roof top.

5) The ventilation holes were provided only at high level from floor.

6) The buildings were mostly painted in white colour.

Swiftlet farming brings in RM2 bln a year!

Dept eyeing China market to increase export value

MIRI: Export value from swiftlet farming in the country has reached around RM2 billion a year, said director-general of Veterinary Services Department Datuk Dr Abdul Aziz Jamaluddin yesterday.

This is because of the big demand for edible bird nest in the Asian market, especially in China, and the increasing swiftlet farming activities in the country.

“We are trying to penetrate the China market. We can fetch a good value for it in China as the country imposed around 30 per cent tax for the product acquired from Hong Kong. As such, the government is trying to establish an understanding with China to enable those in the industry to export their product directly to the country,” Dr Abdul Aziz said after launching the state-level Veterinary Month here.

He said there have been tremendous yearly increases in number of swiftlet farmers or operators in the country since the past five years.

“In Peninsular Malaysia, the number increased from 900 in 1998 to 50,000 last year. From an income of around RM18,000 in 1998 it ballooned to RM1 billion in 2008,” said Dr Abdul Aziz who was representing Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim.

The introduction or marketing of the product will be carried out in stages in the Asian market. It has the same potential with other products such as ‘tongkat ali’ and ‘kacip fatimah’ which are picking up among Asian consumers.

“We are also trying to go into Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Europe. We can see there are big potentials in the industry in Sarawak,” he added.

Meanwhile, the cabinet has approved the Veterinary Services Department as the agency to develop swiftlet farming in the country.

Also present were permanent secretary to the Ministry of Modernisation of Agriculture, Datu Jaul Samion and the director of Agriculture Department, Paul Vincent Ritom.

By Anthony Joseph(BorneoPost)

Good news!

I will remain optimistic on the prospect and the future of this trade.

We should capitalise on this golden opportunity to venture into it.

Nothing's gonna stop us now.....

Only the sky is the limit.......

If only there were 28 hours a day….

Our lives are so busy, so short, and time passes by so fast…

We are always scrambling to find more time to ourselves to do what we like to do in our lives.

Everybody is demanding time from you, your boss, your wife, your kids, your parents, your co-workers, your friends and the list goes on…. And for me, my BHs and my blog also require me giving them my time too. Haha..

My construction project schedules are so tight. Never did I have the courage to promise somebody something, even though I really would like to…

Had it not because of my family’s encouragement, I believe my BH project until today still have not kicked off…sigh…

All I need is another extra 3 hours in a day to do some online researching about swiftlet farming.

To have time to blog around here is kind of luxury to me.

Sometimes I have to sacrifice my sleeping hours…

So whoever drops by here, I really want to thank you.

Thanks for sharing your time with me.

In case you are first time here, you may…

- skim through the topics which are of interested to you

- enjoy reading my blog articles

- linger awhile to have a look of the photos posted.

- take part in some survey questionnaires which are related to this trade

- turn to other linked weblogs

- leave some comments if you like, I sincerely looking forward to receiving your feedback!

Thank you and have a nice day!

Happy farming!

p/s : today I am in Medan, will find some time to see the BHs in the suburb areas.

BH – is it considered as development?

According to the Town Planning Act, 1976 (Act 172, Malaysia) [Akta Perancangan Bandar dan Desa], “development” is interpreted as

“the carrying out of any building, engineering, mining, industrial, or other similar operation in, on, over, or under land, the making of any material change in the use of any land or building or any part thereof, or the subdivision or amalgamation of lands; …..”

Development is not only confined to property development, it covers any change in the land use. If your land falls under the jurisdiction of a town council or district office, you have to submit in your development proposal for their approval. If it is a township or real estate development, you can engage a planner or architect to apply for the planning permission for you.

However, first thing first, should we treat BH as a development?

IMO, it is not clearly defined under Section 2 of the Town Planning Act. The interpretation does not spell out that development shall cover any operation related to agriculture or farming and animal husbandry.

Anyway, one can still argue that it should be a development, given that BH construction involves building, engineering and the alteration of the original use of the building (town BH) and change in land use from agriculture to building (standalone BH on agriculture land).

Looks like BH construction rests on no man’s land.

A clear definition specified by the law is very important for the BH owners so that they really understand the necessary actions to be taken to legalise their BHs. Every BH owners have the right to safeguard and protect their investment.

BH water leaking problem

A lot of BH owners like to do a small water pond on top of the roof slab for their own good reasons.

However, this may create problems not only to the BH itself, but also to their neighbors.

Stagnant water not only will cause mosquitoes breeding, it will also affect the BH's internal conditions.

Can you sleep well if people begrudge you for the dengue outbreak? (even though it's not caused by you). Would your farming life still be peaceful with people resenting you for a small pond?

I doubt.

If I have the choice, I won't go for the pond construction on top of the roof. It's a time bomb and we never know when it will back-fire on us. I would rather avoid inviting public wrath.

The reason is : if the roof slab is not properly cast, it is highly likely that water leaking will occur. The water will permeate through the porous slab and drip down to the floor below or soffit of slab.

This subsequently will damage the nesting planks and the mold also will form on the planks eventually.

If the waterproofing is not done on the wall, the ponding water also can seep through the brick wall and wet & stain your neighbour's wall surface.

If your neighbor know you, then may be he will give you a courtesy call to remind you of the incident. Otherwise, he will straight way call for press conference to insist you shut down your BH operation.

Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you.

BH owners should be considerate and must always make sure that this thing do not happen by applying waterproofing to the pond and from time to time do checking on the wall whether there is any visual crack line or not.

If found, immediate action has to be taken. For this we can consult the waterproofing specialist. There are a lot of methods can be deployed to treat the leaking problems. Different circumstances different treatment will be given.

The above just my humble 2 cents. Any offense is unintentional.

Light weight steel structure for BH construction, Pro and Cons

For a conventional RC structure BH, we only use concrete and steel bar as major construction materials. Structural steel (light weight steel) is normally used for factory and warehouse.

What are the advantages?

1) Faster construction. People usually opt for this method when there is an urgency to complete the project within a very short time frame and money is not an issue. After you complete the foundation (pile caps) and ground beams, you only need a few days for the stanchions & I beam erection and composite slab casting (of course we still need to pour concrete on the metal deck formwork). The framework can be done very fast if you have efficient construction management, material delivered just-in-time and deploy experienced sub-cons, skilled workers, adequate plant & machinery and advanced technology.

2) If you are able to complete faster, then you can save a lot in overhead costs (labour cost, machinery rental, supervision cost, & preliminary cost).

3) If your site is very far away from town, it can save you transportation cost (materials like steel bar, plywood, timber, sand & aggregate, cement etc can be minimised).

4) You do not need to clear a lot of space as working yard and for material storage.

5) You can save some money in foundation construction, coz the overall structure fixed self load is lighter.






However, the method also has its down sides, where:

1) We must have proper design for construction. If it is done by third class contractor without any drawing & without proper inspection carried out, I think I will lari kuatx2 if invited to visit the BH. Do you know why World Trade Centre (WTC-911, NYC) collapsed? One of the causes is due to failure of the connection/joint parts. If the jointing area is not properly done, it will affect the integrity of the building.

2) The material used is costly. I remember at the peak time last year, 1 tonne steel was RM 4k plus and as I write this, it has already dropped to RM3.3k per tonne. But even so, it is still expensive compared to concrete (which is about RM 70 per tonne) and deformed reinforcement bar (about RM 1.8k per tonne). One must consider carefully that on one hand you save the overhead & foundation costs, and on the other you have to pay higher material cost. I have given you all the facts, anyway, the choice is still yours.

3) It's very important to make sure that we employ the right sub-cons and it's crucial to hire experienced steel workers/welders to carry out the installation works. Then only you should be able to sleep sound every night.

4) Even though steel can withstand very high tensile stress, but it's weak in fire resistance. One of the good example : WTC. It failed also due to the melting of the connection areas. So, for columns, normally the engineers will do concrete encasement where bars added and cast together with concrete. This process takes time and will only be cost-effective if done in mass proportion.

5) Steel corrosion problem. We have to ensure anti-corrosion paint to be applied at certain time interval (depends on location, if near to beach, we must apply it every year)

6) If you employ structural engineer for the structural steel design, chances are he will adopt higher safety approach (ie 2 dimension instead of 3 dimension analysis), which will incur higher cost.

7) People tends to steal the balanced materials or debris or scrap steel to sell to "Keling botol", if they are left unattended at site. It is therefore not easy to control the material wastage.

The above are just my personal experience and opinions. I might be wrong also.

About swiftlet - What we need to know? (Part 2)

Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus), also called Andaman Grey-rumped Swiftlet, is part of a group of birds called the Cave Swiftlets. They form the Collocaliini tribe within the Apodidae family. The group contains around thirty species mostly confined to southern Asia, south Pacific islands and north eastern Australia. Edible-nest Swiftlet is found in the Andaman and Nicobar islands of India. These birds are more common in Andaman as compared to the Nicobar islands and they inhabit rock caves near the shore. The Cave Swiftlets use a simple but effective form of echolocation to navigate in total darkness through the chasms and shafts of the caves they utilize for night time roosting and breeding.

Edible-nest Swiftlets are small, dark brown, slightly fork-tailed birds (size 12 cm). They are in many respects typical members of the Apodidae having narrow swallow-like wings for fast flight, with a wide gape and small reduced beak surrounded by bristles for hawking insects in flight. The breeding season is mainly March and April. The nests are white, opaque, 6 cm across and of the best commercial (edible) quality. During the breeding season, the salivary glands of this species expand to produce the special inspissated saliva for binding twigs and other detritus together for building the nest, which is a shallow cup stuck to the cave wall. Only those species whose nests are 'white' and made purely or almost purely of saliva are the most prized. The nests are harvested from cave walls.

Edible Nests

The Edible-nest Swiftlet is renowned for the fact that their nests are used for making bird's nest soup in Chinese cuisine. When cooked, the birds' nests have a gelatinous texture. In Chinese cuisine, high medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities are ascribed to these nests. Scientific investigations reveal these nests to be high in protein with about 7% lime. Many consumers of bird nest soup report significant improvement in appetite. However, some others noticed excessive secretion of gastric acid that may cause acid reflux symptoms.

There is some concern that over-harvesting is causing several species of cave swiftlets to become scarce. Bird nest merchants in southeast Asia (including Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc.) have started to raise and breed the swiftlets in house-like structures. They build the shelters to attract wild swiftlets to build nests in them. The wrong kind of nests are then destroyed along with the eggs inside. Over time, the selection process only leaves behind a colony of swiftlets that produce the right kind of nest for the trade. "House nests" are priced much lower than the "cave nests" due to the level of risks involved in the harvesting process.

Guano from the Swiftlets and the many bats that inhabit the caves supports an array of specialized animals that feed on the dung. There are yet other creatures that have evolved to feed on these dung eaters as well as the bats and the swiftlets themselves including among others, snakes that can climb the sheer walls to snatch a passing meal and huge carnivorous crickets that prey on chicks and bat pups. This ecosystem is totally self sustaining, the only link being the birds and the bats that bring the nutrients into the caves in the first place.

Reference : www.birding.in/birds/Apodiformes/edible-nest_swiftlet.htm

About Swiftlet – What we need to know? (Part 1)

Since I left my high school, I never have the chance to touch again anything related to biology. It’s kind of refreshing to revisit this subject and dig out all those technical terms to satisfy my interest in knowing more about the swiftlet.

I understand not everybody likes to know about these. Just pay attention to the words in red colour. Thanks.

Taxonomy and Nomenclature

Kingdom : Animalia

Taxonomic Rank : Species

Common Name : Edible-nest Swiftlet

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Cladus : Eukaryota

Supergroup : Opisthokonta

Kingdom : Animalia - Animal, animals, animaux

Phylum : Chordata - chordates, cordado, cordés

Subphylum : Vertebrata - vertebrado, vertebrates, vertebras

Infraphylum : Gnathostomata

Superclassis : Tetrapoda

Classis : Aves - Birds, oiseaux

Subclassis : Carinatae

Infraclassis : Neornithes

Parvclassis : Neognathae

Order : Apodiformes - Hummingbirds, Swifts

Familia : Apodidae - Swifts

Subfamilia : Apodinae

Tribus : Collocaliini

Genus : Aerodramus -Oberholser, 1906 - Edible-nest Swiftlets

Species:Aerodramus fuciphagus (Thunberg, 1812)-Edible-nest Swiftlet

Subspecies : Direct children: Aerodramus fuciphagus amechanus (Oberholser, 1912)

Aerodramus fuciphagus dammermani (Rensch, 1931)

Aerodramus fuchiphagus fuchiphagus (Thunberg, 1812)

Aerodramus fuciphagus germani (Oustalet, 1876)

Aerodramus fuciphagus inexpectatus (Hume, 1873)

Aerodramus fuciphagus micans (Stresemann, 1914)

Aerodramus fuciphagus perplexus (Riley, 1927)

Aerodramus fuciphagus vestitus (Lesson, 1843)

Aerodramus fuciphagus javensis

So now you know that Aerodramus fuciphagus subset to Aerodramus (swiftlets), and swiftlets subset to hummingbirds/swifts.

Sometimes the biologists also call them Collocalia fuciphaga. This is the tribe name and referring also as the edible-nest swiftlets.

Swiftlet hotel, Segamat

This is the highest BH in Malaysia. It is 20 storeys high.

I heard that the highest in Thailand is 18 storeys. Anyone can confirm on this?

The annual premise license fee to be paid by the owner will be

= RM 240 per operation (based on Penang’s rate)

If based on Kelantan’s rate(the highest in Malaysia), it will turn out to be

= RM 1000 + 19 x RM 500

= RM 10,500 per year

I think the owner is a genius because he is bold enough to make this BH into reality.

The BH operation and maintenance will not be the same like our normal low rise BH.

First, how do the owner and his workers get up to the top floors? By lift? I do not think they use lift because i) electric consumption is very high ii) occupational hazard – if they are trapped inside the lifts, they will face problem to get out as nobody knows that they are in the lift except only their families.

So, they will use the fire escape staircase.

I think there are two fire staircases in this building. One staircase is used for the swiftlets to fly from one floor to another (I do not think they will use the lift shaft or hack openings coz this will create hazard of falling from height). The other one is for them to climb and escape in the event of fire and this is a bit risky. Also, they will face problem if need to carry something heavy to the top floors.

Thanks for your kind support!

My first article was posted in early of Mar 09. Within 3 weeks the viewing of my weblog hit 2000 plus.

Thanks for your kind support, my dearest forum readers.

This would not be become reality without your support from behind. I really treasure and appreciate it.

Even though the viewing result is nothing compared to other successful swiftlet blogs, I really do not expect that. My original purpose of blogging here is just to jot down what I have learnt as well as keep something of sentimental value in the net.

Strange thing is the more I write the more I feel strongly the drive to keep continue doing it.

Cause you all are my inspiration to carry on.

Besides Malaysia, I discover that we have swiftlet-loving friends & readers from all around the world, notably, Thailand, US, Singapore, Germany, Indonesia, India, Australia, Brunei, Brazil, Canada, Cambodia, Switzerland, Africa, etc.

This makes me feel that I am not alone here. There are so many people concerning about this embattled industry and interested in what we are doing & what is going on here.

As a gift of fate that brought us here together, I shall push myself harder to write more interesting articles in near future.

Do feel free to drop me some comments. I am not perfect. I need you to help me to improve. Let’s do it together, alright?

Once again, thank you for sharing your time with me. To all I am truly grateful.