I have written before about the two things a swiftlet house fears most. One, no birds come. Two, somebody else comes to harvest your nests for you.
Owls have their season. Thieves seem to have one too. Honestly, in all my years with swiftlet houses, this is the one I find hardest to stop.
How I found out about mine
Let me tell you about the one I went through.
I had changed a few things in the house, and there were lots of birds playing outside every day. I was happy. Then one day I got there and it felt wrong. The birds kept circling outside and would not go in.
I went closer. The sound was still playing, nothing wrong there. So I did not wait. I went straight to the door, pushed it, and it opened. The lock had been cut right through.
Inside, the whole floor was covered with dead chicks.
For the next two weeks, no new birds came to play outside at all. It took me time adjusting things before I saw birds circling outside again.
Birds circling and not going in has many causes. It is not always thieves. In my case I only found the cut lock when I pushed the door open. So when the birds look wrong, check whether anyone has touched the lock or the walls.
The nests they took are only the first cost
The damage does not stop that night. Usually the newer birds leave first. After some time you notice the old birds slowly leaving too.
There is a question in our website FAQ just on this, and the point comes down to one line. The nests stolen that one time are the small number. The birds leaving are the big one. Somebody walking in, switching the light on and rushing can scare the big birds off their own nests in one visit, and what you lose is the nests that would have come in the years after.
There is another layer that is easy to miss. Thieves harvest standing on the floor with a long pole. Fast, rough and not accurate, so they leave a lot of nest base behind on the nesting planks.
If that nest base is not cleaned off, the bed the swiftlets sleep on is not hygienic, and mould and bacteria grow. To stay healthy and not die young, the birds end up choosing to leave.
The usual defences, and where each one leaks
1. Make the door really strong.
Make the door strong and they knock through your wall. Make the wall stronger and they find another way in.
I still cannot work it out. The hole they knocked in the wall was so small my shoulder would not fit. How did they get in?
2. Put in an alarm and relax.
I rate an alarm as “helps a little”. Once it is in, will they block the signal? I am not sure. And alarms sometimes go off for nothing. The neighbour lets off firecrackers and the wall shakes, or the sensor on the door was badly fixed and falls off, and it rings.
3. Bars on the entrance hole.
Bars can help cut down some thieves. But with that kind of design, the swiftlets cannot fly in as smoothly. Think about both sides before you put them on.
4. A high voltage fence to shock thieves.
No. That is against the law, and we do not support it. High voltage is there for predators.
5. Sweep up the dead chicks and call it done.
The nest base is still on the planks. Miss this step and the old birds will leave too.
What you can do first
To be honest, we still cannot fully solve thieves. Predators are not that clever. Thieves are people, and they have plenty of ways.
There are many ways to defend a house. You can stack a few of these together.
1. Keep the lock where a hand cannot reach it.
Cutting the lock is one way thieves get in. Stopping that is not hard: do not put the lock anywhere a hand can touch it. Get a good door too, and the ground floor walls can be made stronger with more cement.
2. Add a light sensor to your alarm.
When the alarm goes in, ask the installer to fit a light sensor at the same time. A thief inside a swiftlet house will always switch a light on, and the moment there is light, it raises the alarm. If another zone goes off together with it, you can be fairly sure it really is a break-in, not firecrackers.
It does one more job. If you leave one day and forget to turn the light off, the alarm will not arm, so you know straight away.
3. An IP camera that tells you before he reaches the door.
Hardly anyone goes to a swiftlet house. When the camera spots a person, your phone gets a notification. CCTV also shows you how they got in, how many came, and whether an alarm was a false one.
4. Get someone to keep watch, ideally with the houses around you.
Of all the defences I have listed, having somebody keep watch at night works best. The best way is to team up with the swiftlet houses nearby and hire someone together. Owners standing together against thieves.
Hiring someone is not a guarantee, though. A friend of mine hired security, and his house got broken into more often after that. So look carefully at who you hire and how.
5. After a break-in, deal with the planks.
Once the dead chicks are swept up, remember the planks. Clear off the nest base the thieves left. Why harvesting with a long pole from the floor leaves that layer is in how to harvest swiftlet nests. Chicks on the floor do not only come from thieves either, so check swiftlet chicks falling and dying on the floor.
Be careful over Chinese New Year as well. Many owners do not go to check their houses then, so many thieves pick that time. You can harvest the nests that are ready before it. Nests with no eggs yet, and first time nests, still stay, which the harvesting post also explains.
Break-in done, birds still not back
Stopping thieves is about locks, doors, alarms, cameras and people. None of that is swiftlet equipment.
Where we can help is the part after. The planks are clean, but the birds still circle outside and will not come back. Do not rush to change the sound or add tweeters. People walking around inside already disturbs the birds, which I covered in how often to check your swiftlet house. The thieves are gone and the birds are not back, so first find out where it is stuck.
That is what the MDK Swiftlet House Diagnosis Method is for. Diagnosis first, prescription second.
Your next step
During the day, after the birds have flown out, film your way in from the entrance hole on your phone, talking as you go, and record the internal sound and then the external sound. Send it to us on WhatsApp. If we need more after looking, we will ask. You do not have to get everything ready at once.