Bird Nest Farming

What is this crazy, ugly looking building you may ask?!

Well, it's a life size bird house. It's a three-story concrete house to attract Swiftlet birds. The house is bare on the inside but does have a sound system hooked up. There are speakers located all over the place on the inside, attached to the walls and ceilings. The speakers emit a loud piercing sound of the Swiftlet bird's own calling. The noise attracts the Swiftlets in the area. The birds fly into the house (there's an opening at the back) and they build their nests on or near a speaker inside. Once their nest is built they lay their eggs and raise their baby birds until the babies are old enough to fly away, then they abandon the nest.

Once the nest has been abandoned, people (like my dad or workers) go into the bird house with a flashlight, a ladder, a mirror, and a bucket. You need to look for a nest, then look to see if there is still a baby bird in the nest (hence the use of a mirror), and if there isn't one you take the nest down and collect it. It seems so strange to me but apparently it's a pretty big business in Asia.

Once you've collected your nests (the nests are white in colour) you need to clean them. Once the nests are cleaned you package them together and weigh them (they're sold by weight). A buyer will pay a hefty amount for good quality nests, most of these get shipped to China where restaurants use them to make bird's nest soup.

Matthew and I helped my dad collect some nests that day and I must say that I don't think you could pay me money to eat that soup. I don't care how many Chinese doctors or scientists tell me that it is very "healthy". I've seen these nests before they get cleaned and some of them have literal bird shit in them. But hey, what do I know? I know that I don't make thousands of dollars each month from selling birds nests to China. If you're ever in China and bird's nest soup is on the menu, let me know how it tastes because I couldn't bring myself to have any in Malaysia.