Faked nests can help swiftlets to build nests

I was doing maintenance work in my other BH on Friday. Well, on and off, I have to check the conditions of the BH. What I noticed in my BH is the nests count on the 2nd Floor is increasing quite rapidly and almost half of the nests are built on top of the faked nests made from styrofoam. What is the reason that the swiftlets like to build on top of the styrofoam support?


For young swiftlets the grooves in the nesting planks may not help the swiftlet to hang comfortably or may be the nesting planks are too hard for them to grip. So, supports in the form of rectangular-shaped styrofoam could help these young swiftlets to hang and build nests.


Studies had shown that having lots of these fake nests could increase the nest counts by 30% the normal growth rate. For new farms, owners should forget about nest quality for the time being. After two cycles, the owner can take away the styrofoam and harvest the nests and let the birds rebuild their nests. Fake nests can come in all shapes and sizes but the cheapest could be the rectangular cut styrofoam which can either be screwed to the nesting planks or glued using the white styrofoam glue used for pasting papers. Many owners used plastic and silicone nests shaped like the original nestsbut they are slightly expensive costing between RM4 to RM6 per piece. We can also make nests shaped like the original nest out of styrofoam but is it really necessary unless we would like to attract stray pregnant birds which have their nest harvested and have no place to lay their eggs.