Poultry Houses
Types of Chicken Farming
New chicken farmers will need to decide what kind of chicken farming they wish to do – you have several choices – chicken egg farming, chicken meat farming or breeder/broiler farming.
Each of these types of poultry farming require specific kinds of poultry houses and poultry equipment. While all poultry houses may look the same to the uninitiated, they are very specific to the types of poultry farming they are used in.
Broiler Houses
Broiler houses are designed for chicken meat farming. The chickens will live on the floor and will stay in the house for 4 weeks – to 6 weeks. (depending on what weight you want your chicken to be when you sell the chickens). They broiler house size is determined by how many chickens you want to farm – generally poultry farmers will place 15 birds per square meter – that is is for intensive chicken farming. Free range chicken farming and organic chicken farming have their own specific regulations which do not allow such a high concentration of chickens per square meter. Where you are farming will play an important role in what poultry equipment you use – hot places will need fans, and very cold places will need heaters (heaters are required in all broiler houses to warm the day old chickens). If you want to have chickens ready for market on a weekly basis you will need to put up a chicken house for every week in the month and another that will rotate as the cleaning and preparation house (cycle end time needs 2 weeks for cleaning and disinfecting).
Layer houses
Layer houses are wider and higher than broiler houses – and they have a larger curtaining opening. The extra width is for allowing easy access around the cages and nest boxes for egg collecting, and the wide curtains are needed for cooling the house. The extra height is so the birds in the top tier of the layer cages are not too close to the roof). They will need layer cages or nest boxes inside the house. The size of the house is determined, again, by the number of hens you wish to farm with. The drinking equipment will depend on whether you use battery cages (nipple drinkers) or nest boxes (nipple drinkers or automatic bell drinkers). You budget will determine how fancy the equipment is.
Broiler breeder chicken houses
Setting up a broiler breeder farm is an expensive endeavour – you will need a layer house and a hatchery (the place where the eggs are hatched into day old chicks for sale to broiler farmers and layer farmers) The poultry house will have to use nest boxes and will contain hens and cocks for breeding purposes.
So now what....?
All chicken house do however have common elements – the winched curtaining systems are very similar – bigger curtains for layer houses and black out curtains for breeder houses. They all have water tanks on the roof and for the smaller farmers they are generally steel structures. The yellow door range caters for all these types of farming – whether you want to farm with 500 chickens or 3000 chickens. Larger farmers will either put up more houses or upgrade to a commercial chicken house using bricks and mortar. While some farmers do not spend the extra on roof insulation, this is a mistake that many of them regret later. Whether you are in a hot place or a cold place, insulation will save on cooling and heating costs, and in some cases will determine the success of your poultry project.
The standard Yellow door poultry house come with everything you need for a profitable chicken farm. There are optional extras with each kind of operation – fans, insulation, thicker roofing steel, rat boxes and more. Each of these will make your life as a poultry farmer easier – but they are not essential in many cases. Depending on where you are farming you can decide which of the extras may be critical to your particular operation.
Once you have decided on what type of chicken farming you want to do, and you have chosen a poultry house to suit the farming and number of birds you wish to place you are ready for the hard part - setting up the poultry farm. You will need storage sheds (for food and spares). You will need to think about lights in you chicken house and you will need to decide what kind of chickens you want to farm with. You will need to find a supplier of the types of chickens you are going to farm with. The birds should have been inoculated and had the right shots. You will need a supplier of chicken medication. Who is going to deliver your chicken feed? - or are you going to collect it? Who will be working the farm everyday - whoever it is will need some kind of training - learning to farm with chickens is not too hard - but there are, as always, good methods and bad methods. What are you going to do with the chicken litter, or droppings. Have you got space to spread it out and turn it into compost - if so that will be another source of income. Do you have someone to sell your eggs or chickens to? How far are you away from an abattoir? Will your customers collect or will you deliver. Do you have a local market, and are you willing to sell to the public? So many questions that need definite answers and a plan. Spend some time on your poultry farming business plan - this will force you to ask and answer all these questions. Good luck!