High income from bird's nest farming

After 10 years of deciding to change their career path to raising swiftlets, Mr. Phan Van Thu and his wife, Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Huyen, in Quarter 2, Ward 2, Dong Ha City, Quang Tri Province, have now succeeded in raising swiftlets. From the first swiftlet house, the couple has now owned many more swiftlet houses and linked up with dozens of other swiftlet houses to proactively source raw materials to process bird's nest products under the Truong Tho brand. Not only creating an economic foundation for the family, the model of raising swiftlets and processing products from bird's nests of Mr. Thu and Ms. Huyen also creates jobs for many workers.

Workers at Mr. Thu's company are processing bird's nests - Photo: D.V

Anh Thu said that he came to the bird nest farming profession in the style of "the profession chooses the person". After graduating from a university in Da Nang with a degree in construction, he worked as a supervisor for a number of construction projects. In 2013, he supervised the construction of a project in Hue City. There, a brother who was a project manager suggested that Thu take up bird nest farming as an additional income while chatting.

At first he wasn't very interested, but then he saw that this person's job was somewhat leisurely but the income was high, so he was curious to learn about this profession.

“Thanks to the support, guidance, and transfer of technology and experience in raising swiftlets from this acquaintance, in 2014 I took my first steps in learning with the idea of earning some extra money. At that time, my model of raising swiftlets was the first model implemented in Quang Tri ,” Mr. Thu shared.

However, raising swiftlets was not easy at first. In addition to people's doubts about this new model, the difficulty that Mr. Thu faced was that the swiftlets were not as expected. Determined not to be discouraged, in addition to the "tricks" that his brother taught him, Mr. Thu also tried to improve the sound to attract swiftlets according to his own feelings.

At the same time, in those early days, he spent almost all day wandering around the fields to observe and search for flocks of swiftlets. He also collected bird droppings, ground them up, and spread them around the birdhouse to attract the flock...

With a thorough understanding of the biological characteristics and habits of swiftlets, along with great passion and determination, after many difficulties and challenges, Mr. Thu finally has his own secrets with this new profession. The flock of swiftlets he attracts to his house is increasing day by day and the results are getting greater and greater.

He started to earn income from raising swiftlets. “At first, I just wanted to try raising them to earn extra income to cover my living expenses. But after seeing the effectiveness and great potential of the swiftlet farming model, I quit my construction job to focus on this profession,” said Mr. Thu.

With great expectations for the bird's nest farming profession, Mr. Thu and his wife have devoted all their efforts to investing in developing bird's nest houses and cooperating with many other partners in developing bird's nest houses to proactively source bird's nest materials.

At the same time, he and his wife established a business to produce, process and trade products from bird's nests and carry out technology transfer and installation of equipment to serve the bird's nest farming profession for customers.

From the original bird's nest house, after many years of building, Mr. Thu and his wife now own 5 bird's nest houses in Quang Tri province, and have also linked up with 14 other bird's nest houses with partners in localities such as Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Dong Nai, An Giang...

Along with that, the couple started to register to produce and trade bird's nest products under the Truong Tho brand. With abundant, clean and quality raw materials, the company has produced key product lines such as: raw bird's nest, clean bird's nest, sterilized pre-cooked bird's nest jars... for customers of different ages and physical conditions.

The products are not only invested in beautiful and eye-catching designs, but the product quality is always put first with strict criteria, especially in ensuring food hygiene and safety. "Our bird's nest products are completely self-sufficient from the bird's nest houses of our families and partners, carefully selected. Fresh bird's nests after exploitation do not use preservatives.

Product processing procedure includes: for raw bird's nest products, clean bird's nests, classifying bird's nests after exploitation - preliminary processing - processing - freeze drying and finally packaging finished products.

For bird's nest in jars, in addition to the above steps, there is also a step of putting it in a jar to cook and sterilize, and then finishing and packaging the product. The good news is that in December 2023, our Truong Tho clean bird's nest product was recognized as a 3-star OCOP product," said Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Huyen.

Up to now, the profession of raising swiftlets and producing and trading products from swiftlets of Mr. Thu and Ms. Huyen has brought high economic efficiency. Every year, Mr. Thu's company processes and sells to the market (in the province and major localities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Dong Nai...) about 40 - 50 kg of raw swiftlets and 4,000 - 5,000 jars of sterilized swiftlets; after deducting expenses, the profit is more than 500 million VND/year. The company also creates regular jobs for 10 local workers with an income of 6 - 8 million VND/person/month along with other welfare regimes.

Not stopping there, Mr. Thu and his wife are planning to continue to develop and expand their business in more diverse fields in the near future. Specifically, according to Mr. Thu, the company is currently carrying out procedures to apply for land lease in Dong Ha City to invest in building a factory to process products such as beef jerky, canned beef, bird's nest products, fish... for export to the Chinese market in the coming years.

Hieu Giang

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