Site Selection And Poultry House Construction

Layer/Broiler site selection and project execution
Now is time to build a site for our poultry. During site selection, the following should be considered:
• Do not site your project on a high elevation as this may expose the structure we would build on it to damage from strong winds and other natural distorter.
• Avoid locating your poultry farm in a swampy area as this may endanger proper management if the project is located at the bottom of the valley.
• When designing poultry farm you must put cardinal point into consideration in conjunction with direction of winds.
The importance of the above mention point can never be over emphasis as this may lead to error of gross magnitude if ignored. For an idea of why you should consider the above point seriously, a brooder house sited with the long axis facing the east and west will be risking re-occurrence of gumboro disease because of the excessive heat load that will be generated within the house. Also if sited in swamp, you risk flooding whenever there is rain. As for the issue of wind direction, it not only damage structure it may also help in spreading disease outbreak among the birds. This in turn may take its toll on the output of the poultry at harvest time leading to shortage.

Housing Construction
Remember that saying, “You can’t eat your flakes and have it.” If you provide your chickens with good housing, they will respond with increase in production and consequently this will increase your profit.

The first basic step you need to take is to provide the chicken/birds with shade provided by the house. Allow adequate pace per birds to allow for healthy environment for the birds.the house should also be properly ventilated. The type of house that is usually most suitable for layer rearing is the open sided. Such houses are often constructed with solid base wall of about 1-2 layer concrete block coaches of 6 inches. The other sides are open sided with ¼ wire mesh with controllable curtains and height of about 4.5m. Make sure the door to your poultry house open outwards and not inward to avoid causing injury to birds. There should also be a space between the gate to your poultry house and poultry house itself.

When constructing the poultry house, the following guidelines are useful for spacing purpose.

Ages of chicken in weeks Floor space requirement
0 to 6 0.13 t0 0.54 sq ft/bird
(0.0123 to 0.05m^2/bird)
6 to 12 0.54 to 0.8 sqft/bird
(0.05 to 0.08 m^2/bird)
Point of lay 1.08 to 3.2sqft /bird
(0.05 to 1.45m^2/bird)


Please do note that this is approximation only. You should apply common senses when building poultry houses. Know the number of birds you want to stock and use the table above to check how much land space is required. From there apply your own common senses and construct the building. Remember during your construction that soil topography is considered by choosing a level ground to avoid flood gushing into the housing from sides as this will pose serious danger to deep liter system management. Make a concrete base for the house to avoid predators digging and entering the house. It will also prevent deep liter system from become wet too quickly.

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Poultry Housing
Types Of Poultry Housing
Site Selection And Poultry House Construction