Chapter 2: How Many Types of Swallows That U should Know?

How many types of swallows are there in the world?

My personal answer is that there are just too many and most of them are not relevant to a newbie in swiftlet farming. I believed you should not be too bothered about how many there are and how they look like and so forth.

You should try to know how many birds that produces those edible birdnests and the rest are useless to you.

Anyway for the sake of curiosity my personal answer to your question is that no body knows exactly how many types of swallow there are in the wild.

Some says there are 21, some come out with 14 but some says 38.

Let us not be confused with these numbers but focus on three that are said to produce edible nests

These are:

1) Collocalia Fuciphaga (Aerodramus Fuciphagus)or AF

2) Collocalia Maxima (Aerodramus Maximus)or AM

3) Collocalia Germani (Aerodramus Germani)

Out of the three only the first two are said to be found in Malaysia and Indonesia while Germani are only found in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philliphine.

The best among the two i.e. AF and AM, is the AF birdnest. They are crystal white and are the most hunted for. Their nests are mainly made of saliva with little feathers. They can be attracted to make their nests in specially built house.

AM produces black edible birdnests. They are cave dwellers and their nest are black due to the high content of their feathers. The ratio of saliva and feathers are something like 70% feathers and 30% saliva. They are not the ideal nest for us to be concern of.

Both types are said to be from a group called apodidae. Apodidae refers to swiftlets that have deformed legs structure so much so they have difficulties in perching. They are adapted to clinging to walls and they are built with strong chest muscle to enable them to fly for one whole day without stopping.

One other special charecteristic that they have is the ability to find they ways in the dark using the echolocation ability. Due to this special ability they prefer to stay in caves or house that are dark.

Chapter 1: What Is Actually Edible Birdnest?

The first time I was introduced to this subject matter, about 5 years ago, I laugth to myself.

What the heck is this Birdnest all about?

I thought all swallows birdnests are made of twigs and grass. How the hell can they be so precious. This guy who first talk to me about it must be a nut case !!!

He was my wife classmate and I happenned to be invited for lunch during one of the CNY reunion.

I was given a seat beside him and I asked him what business was he in. His answer Birdnest Farming. I laught Ha ha ha (inside me of course). In my mind I said to myself this guy was a nuts case. He was crazy and why should I be sitting beside a crazy nut guy?

He was very pesistant and told me exactly what type of birdnest farming was he into.

To make it very simple, he explained that there are two types of swallows birdnests. The first is non edible and the other is edible.

Again the non edible are made of clay or grass/twigs while the edible are those made mainly of the birds saliva.

Just look at these pictures:



Nests that are made of mud which are non edible. Just look at the mud thickness? Do you think people will eat them?

They also seem to have more then two babies?





What about those nests that are made of grass? They look nice but can they be eaten? How many babies to you think they have in one nest?



If you look carefully you will notice that the grass nests are quite delicate. Each grass are being binded with a kind of glue. What glue do you think the bird uses?

If you are not very sure you should ask. They use their "saliva". Not much just a bit, about 10 to 20% only.

Now let us look carefully at the edible birdnests:


Note that they are totally made of saliva plus perhaps some of their feathers.



This is what you are talking about when you said edible birdnest. They look very much like dried agar-agar.



You must remember this white stuff is worth more then a 99.99 pure gold. We call them the "White Gold".

Introduction: Swiftlet Farming For Dummies !!!

Hello to all my dear friends and newbies in swiftlet farming.

This short introduction is made available to all newbies who have little of no knowledge on swiftlet farming.

For the pass few months after writing various articles about my experiences in swiftlet farming plus many tips and visits that I made, I have been receiving with lots of compliments and requests.

One of the request that really touch my heart was from Mr.Giap Khaw.

He was very sincere in his request and he have zero knowledge on swiftlet farming but have a very high interest in it.

He asked me if I could let him a URL where I put in basic information for dummies (a completely blank person about swiftlet farming) like him. He told me to called it "Swiftlet Farming For Dummies".

In responding to this special request I have activated a blog site that I think will meet his request.

I am going to make it very basic and I hope it will benefit all those that are new to swiftlet ranching/farming.

Wellcome to my : "Swiftlet Farming For Dummies".