Saturday, January 23, 2010

Pak Hen's seminar in jakarta

Soon as the word went out to my group of farming friends in Thailand, response to Pak Hen's seminar in Jakarta was unexpectedly positive. My first concern was the language used in seminar presentation. But Pak Hen was kind to assure us he would conduct additional sessions during the evening in English.

Came 7th August '09, we gathered at Suvarnabhumi Airport to depart for Jakarta.
















Checking in with good spirits.
















Attendance was good - more than a hundred and probably 1/2 from Malaysia.
















Though several topics were covered in Bahasa Indonesia, the visual projections helped to keep interest alive.
















All participants gathered for a photo shot after 2 days.
















The third day was an optional tour to farming towns to the western end of Java - Panimbang, along the Sunda Straits between Java & Sumatra.















The journey took perhaps 4 hrs, so you can imagine the outcome of the first toilet break.
















Norodin Top's wanted poster was prominently displayed on the toilet walls outside. Andy posed beside and thought he has the bounty on his head!
















Midway we visited a small processing center at a village en-route.
















The ladies continue with their work pretending we were not present.





















Of course snapping photos of each others is another activity.
































P'Moo pretended he is the new owner of the processing biz!






















We had sea food barbeque - Indo style for lunch. Simply delicious.





































Getting off the bus finally reaching Panimbang.
















This huge bird house is sadi to produce 70Kg per harvest!
















Most Indo bird houses we saw has small entrance holes, located at multi-levels.
















'Saw-tooth' metal plate installed on top to protect against burglars.

















Not far is what the locals named "Malaysian Complex", a group of bird houses by Malaysian investors. The compound is protected by 4m wall all round.
















This bird house has sliding metal barrier gate to keep owls away, manually lowered each evening.






















Pak Hen's bird house in the area.
















This swiftlet was seen struggling to get off the 'parabolic' wire mesh. Something to watch out for in selection the wire mesh.
















We find this ferris wheel on a tricycle more interesting than bird house actually.
















On the day before departing, we dropped by at EKA Walet's shop to check out what are in store.

Fascinating to see these newly incubator hatched chicks.
















We purchase 100 eggs back to experiment with. They will be distributed in some of our bird houses to hatch.
















Overall, it was an informative and enjoyable trip.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Saw your blog on swiftlet farming. I’m keen to learn more, and eventually hoping to own one too, and/or to import some birdnest for distribution. I’ve no idea how I can find out more and hence respond to your blog.

Can you email me at maycheng2006@gmail.com?

Thanks and looking forward to your reply! ;)

Rich said...

Love your Swiftlet Farming article. I was puzzled as to why the lower floor does not have the air holes as well. Thanks for the high quality pictures and your awesome english comments. I was hoping to see more of the internal after the completion of the exterior. As for the cost of the project, can you share this with me or the readers? Personally I think you spend a great deal of time on this project. As for someone living in NYC, I don't think it is necessary to put another layer of cement over the exposed bricks. Many houses in USA does not have cement as compared to Indonesia. Is this because of the quality of the bricks?
I have a copy of Pak Hen's book, but I can not read Indonesian. :-)
I saw your picture and want to follow you on facebook. I couldn't find you. Good luck Walet Twins.

I was in Borjonoro last summer evaluating some very old BH.

I also think the insect should be flying insects versus crawling ones as the swiftlet can catch them in the air.

Kind regards,
Rich
richttom @gmail
NYC

Seller

Walet.twins said...

Folks, sorry I haven't come back to this blog for a while.

May, just wrote you an email to apologize.

Rich, bird houses of each country and regions has different approaches in terms of design & construction methods & materials used. Many are successful so there is no hard & fast rules.

I am not a Facebook guy. I signed up just to trace the owner of a lost wallet. She was so grateful and couldn't believe someone track her down on Facebook to return her wallet!