I understand that Alan Pang has (amongst other things), told some potential buyers of his shamas that his birds are “almost as good” as mine and that he taught me everything about hand-rearing shamas. I suppose he said this to try to impress potential buyers of his ability and knowledge in shamas so as to try to raise the market value of his birds.
I will not comment on Alan’s claim that his shamas are comparable to mine. Those who are interested can visit his blog and see for themselves the photos and videos of his birds and draw their own conclusions.
I wish to comment in this post mainly on his claim that that he had taught me everything about hand-rearing shama chicks. Actually, his statement was that he had tried to teach me all he knows about shama rearing but I “also can’t”, and I had failed to successfully hand-rear them.
Personally, I really don’t care what Alan says, but it is important that potential buyers of his birds know the type of person he is as it may assist them to better understand if any representations that he makes about his shamas can be relied upon. People who think he is a friend may also wish to reconsider the extent and value of his "friendship".
I do not know Alan’s actual motive in bad mouthing me, especially as I have always tried to be friendly and helpful to him. Amongst other things, I even referred potential buyers to him who then bought his birds. For example, on 19th May 2013, I received an email enquiring if I had shamas for sale. I replied:
“I presently don’t have any shamas for sale. You may wish to check with Alan Pang who may have. For an idea of prices and quality visit his website at whiterumpshamacollections.blogspot.com”.
This person bought a shama from Alan and he has told me that the only reason that he did so was because of my referral.
Subsequently, when this same person wanted to buy a female shama from Alan, they had a whatsapp conversation that included the topic of hand rearing. I reproduce below an extract of their conversation. Bear in mind that I had only recently referred this buyer to him and he hardly knew this person.
Buyer: “No one can be as good as u in handrearing”
Alan: “Not easy lah. I teach dds so many time he oso cant”
Buyer: “U sure got yr secret tactic la”.
Alan: “Sure have but I teach him everything he still fail.”
Alan has in fact taught me nothing about hand-rearing shama chicks and whatever I know on the subject was obtained through my own efforts and experience. There can be no doubt about this as it is on record that I had hand-raised more than a hundred shama chicks (including those hatched in an incubator) even as at June 2008, i.e. long before Alan had learnt from my blog, how to keep shamas successfully. The records that I refer to are set out below.
On my website shama.com.sg (which I updated from 2004 to 2008), I had set out the temperature for hatching shama eggs:
“At what temperature should shama eggs be incubated?
I have consistently and successfully hatched Shama eggs in an incubator at a temperature of 37.4 degrees centigrade. The temperature in the egg will increase slightly as the chick is about to hatch. For this reason the temperature of the incubator should be reduced by one degree the day before the egg is expected to hatch”
Further, in June 2008, I posted on my blog, “ I have hand-fed (rather my wife has) more than a hundred shama chicks, or about half of the shama chicks that I have bred and my opinion below is offered from this perspective.”
And in October 2008, also on my blog: “I hatch my shama eggs at 37.4 degrees Celsius and reduce the temperature to 36 degrees 2 days before the eggs are due to hatch. When the newly hatched chicks are placed in the brooder, the temperature is maintained at 35 degrees for a day before it is reduced by 1 degree a day. When the chicks start to feather, the temperature is turned off. I may then continue to keep them in the brooder or transfer them with the nest to a cage.”
The undisputed fact is that whatever success Alan has had in keeping and breeding shamas is mainly attributable to the information that he obtained from me directly or from my blog. He has acknowledged as much in a post on his blog dated 8th February 2011, where he wrote:
“I have been following Mr Davids Blog since I restart to keep shama. It is because of him I find out the reason of how I loss all my shama years back, without his blog infor I don’t think I dare to take the chance again. He even offered solid advise whenever i email him, what a great guy..! Btw, till today, I still don’t [know] him or how he look like.”
Again, on 25th January, 2012 he posted on his blog:
“DDS ever told me, he says it is always easier to breed in the first year but it gets harder and harder when one has more Shamas at one place. It is true, lucky for me to have a good friend like him to pre warn me on what is going to happen and what to expect. [NB. Apparently, the value of friendship to some people is what they can benefit from it] I am also glad that with the help of the most reliable incubator and DDS “brand” Brooder, I have successfully incubate 8 eggs and bring up 8 chicks without casualty!
It will be seen that I had successfully hand-raised shama chicks long before 2011 when Alan started breeding shamas. Further, Alan admits that his previous attempts at keeping shamas had failed until he learnt about shamas from my blog and in email correspondence with me. It will therefore be appreciated that his claim that he had taught me to hand-raise chicks but I still could not successfully do so, cannot be true. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people think that it is despicable for him to have made such a claim.
In the above whatsapp conversation, Alan also falsely claimed that all his female shamas are the "offspring from his [my] male birds." This is clearly not true as, of the 40 or so females that he claims to have bred at the time of the conversation, it is within my knowledge that at the most, only 2 or 3 were the offspring from the 2 male birds bred by me. These males were provided by their owners to him under a chick sharing arrangement.
I should mention that sometime ago a friend of mine whom Alan also knew bought a taimong from him. At the time of sale, Alan told this buyer that it would have tails of 11” or 12” after the 1st or 2nd molt. He also said that if the buyer was not happy with the bird, he would exchange it. The buyer did not like the character or something about the bird and Alan changed it. After the molt, the buyer still did not like its character and he also did not like the tails that were about 7” (the tails were about 7 1/2" after the 2nd molt). I saw the bird and suggested to Alan that he should change it as the buyer had not got what he had paid for. His reply was that he had already changed once and could not be expected to do so again. The buyer eventually sold the bird at a fraction of the price that he had paid for it and mentioned to me that "once was enough".
Notwithstanding that Alan has learnt about shama keeping and breeding from information that I freely provided, his attitude now seems to be that he knows a lot and he should keep such information to himself, even from friends.
A mutual friend informed me just the other day, that he had asked Alan as to the temperature setting of the brooder for a newly hatched chick and Alan had replied that such information was “a trade secret”. Obviously, for some people, it’s wonderful that others share information with them but its not OK for them to pass on the same information. Surely, this shows the character of the man.
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