Commercial Poultry House (12 Most Important Features)

When it comes to poultry farming, constructing a good commercial poultry house is very important for success. A poultry house is necessary because it provides security for the birds and protects them from adverse weather conditions.

Among other things, farmers considering building poultry facilities on their farms must give considerable thought to the location of the new structures.

Whether you are new to poultry farming or you are an expert seeking to improve your poultry housing style for business, this guide will help you.

In this article, you will find answers to questions touching on commercial poultry housing design and construction. You will also learn why you need to build a standard poultry house and the basic features and characteristics of good poultry housing.

So, if you are ready to build the best poultry house for your birds, then let’s dive right into it.

Why Do You Need A Commercial Poultry House?

Building a good poultry house for your birds comes with a lot of advantages for both the birds and the farmer. Here are some of the best reasons for constructing a standard poultry house for your birds;

1. Good poultry housing provides comfort and protection for the birds
2. It makes poultry management easy for the farmer
3. Easy, convenient, and economical operations 
4. Reduces the total cost of production 
5. Helps to protect the birds from floods, rain, and the sun
6. It gives room for an optimum and uniform growth rate 
7. A well-secured poultry house will prevent mice, rats, and other birds from eating your poultry feed and prevent disease transmission.
8. Poultry pens protect birds from predators – dogs, cats, snakes, birds of prey, rats, and thieves.
9. You need to build a chicken coop or nest to give hens a safe place to lay their eggs.
10. Commercial poultry housing must be comfortable for the birds to maximize flock performance.
11. Better ensure better poultry health and welfare 
12. With a good design and construction of the poultry pen, you can maximize the use of space and increase stocking density.

Characteristics and Features of a Commercial Poultry House

If you want to enjoy the smooth running of your poultry farm and ensure that your birds are healthy, then you need to build a good poultry house.

Poultry farmers who have set up a good poultry housing system can testify that this is a prerequisite for success in this business.

To better construct a good poultry housing system, here are some characteristics and features that will guide you.

1. Ease of movement within the farm:

When designing your poultry farm, you must make room for workers to move freely within the pen without obstructions. This feature is important because it makes it easy for workers to provide food and water for the birds.

In addition, workers can easily move birds and objects around and carry out their routine checks effectively. Also, enough spacing in the poultry house makes it convenient for easy and effective cleaning. 

Here is another quick tip for you. Build your poultry egg storeroom, office room, and feed storeroom near the entrance to the farm. This will minimize the movement of people around the poultry sheds which may cause the spread of diseases.

2. The poultry house must have controlled access:

While you need to make provision for easy movement within the poultry farm, you need to restrict or control entrance into it. When you make it easy for visitors and unauthorized people to access your poultry farm, you put your birds in danger. There may be an increase in the incidence of diseases and even theft. As a result, you need to provide locks for your poultry pen.

To ensure the biosecurity of the pen, make sure anyone entering the farm is wearing protective clothing. Also, ensure that everyone dips their boots in a foot bath, containing disinfectant, before entering the farm.

3. Good poultry house has comfortable flooring/bedding for the birds:

The floor or the poultry house must comfortable enough for the birds. It should also be safe for the eggs. 

If the poultry bedding is poor, your chicken eggs may crack before you pick them up.

When eggs continue to crack and you encounter lots of losses, only then will you understand that you are in a bad business.

4. Convenience and ease of cleaning:

When it comes to poultry production, proper hygiene is key and may determine the success or failure of your business. Hence, one of the characteristics of good poultry housing is the ease and convenience of cleaning to minimize the death of birds.

You must build your poultry housing system in a way that makes every part of the farm accessible for cleaning. 

5. Provides features for easy egg Collection:

If you are keeping birds in your poultry farm for egg production, then you must make provision for chicken nests for laying eggs.

The poultry housing must guarantee the safety and ease of collection of the eggs in good condition.

If you don’t provide a nest for the birds to lay eggs, you will find a lot of cracked eggs which is a loss to the business.

6. Fitted with good lighting and heating system:

Another important feature that your poultry house must have is good lighting and a heating system.  Birds like it when the environment is warm, it keeps them healthy. Hence, you must ensure that you install a proper lighting and heating system that can provide adequate warmth for your birds.

On another note, you must ensure that you control the provision of light at night. If you leave the light in the poultry house on all through the night, then the birds will remain active and continue to eat. As a result, they will become weak because of a lack of enough sleeping time.

To curb this, make sure you turn off the lights at night and allow the birds to get at least 8 hours of sleep.

7. Must allow for proper ventilation:

Another vital characteristic of good poultry housing is that it allows for proper ventilation within the pen. This is a core feature of your poultry farm that will guarantee your success in the business.

By providing proper ventilation for the birds, you thereby prevent the spread of contagious diseases on the farm.

8. A commercial poultry housing must have an effective waste disposal unit

It may be possible in theory, but in practice, it is inevitable for birds to die in poultry production. So, when your birds die, you must take out the carcasses and dispose of them properly. An effective waste disposal unit helps to prevent bad smells around the farm and reduces the risk of exposing the birds to diseases. 

As a result, you must incorporate a disposal unit into the poultry farm to handle this function. The disposal unit must be far away from the poultry birds and humans so that the smell does not result in something negative.

If you have the capacity, then you can salvage and process the poultry waste as manure for crop farming.

9. It must be clean at all times:

Besides constructing a poultry farm that is easy and convenient for cleaning, you must also make sure that the farm is clean at all times. This is necessary because poultry birds are susceptible to contracting diseases in dirty farmhouses.

You must ensure that you don’t leave any cobwebs hanging as this will trap dust in the poultry house.

Also, you must not leave bushes around the farm. Leaving thick vegetation around the pen may attract pests like rats and snakes. You honestly don’t want any of these pests on your farm because they will destroy your birds.

10. Provide a different house for different birds according to age and species of birds

Another characteristic of commercial poultry housing is the ease of sorting birds according to different criteria like age and species.

The poultry world is like that of other animals – it is the fight for the survival of the fittest. If you put birds of different ages together, the older birds may peck or step on the younger birds and injure or kill them.

Also, different species of birds have different immune systems, and may not be a good idea for you to mix them up together.

For instance, layer chicken feed and broiler feed are not the same. So, to ensure that your birds are getting the feed formula, you must build a different poultry house for your layers and broilers.

11. A commercial poultry house must have a standard hatchery unit:

A complete poultry house must have a standard hatchery unit for hatching eggs. This is very vital since it is more economical to hatch your eggs than buying day-old chicks.

However, you don’t need to build a hatchery if you are just starting your poultry farming business. At least, this will save you the initial cost of setting up your business.

But in the long run, you will need to install a standard hatchery for hatching your eggs and reduce the risk of bringing birds with diseases to the farm.

12. A good poultry housing must be weatherproof

A weatherproof poultry housing will keep the poultry birds safe from adverse weather conditions such as cold, rain, wind, hot sun, etc. 

Your poultry pen must have the facilities of providing warmth, particularly during the brooding period and in cold seasons. For instance, you may fit a roll-up tarpaulin on the walls of your poultry farm. When there is rain or extreme cold, you can roll down the tarpaulin and protect the birds from the weather.

These are the common characteristics and features you must consider for creating a suitable poultry housing system for your birds. 

Follow everything very carefully while making a house for your birds and you are well on your way to success.

If you need help setting up your poultry farm, send an email with your request to [email protected] and you will get a reply immediately.

Resources for further reading

• Roysfarm
• Agric Tech India
• The Big Book Project

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