Poultry house construction

Specification for construction of Poultry house:

• Orientation: Under tropical conditions the poultry have orientation should be North-South i.e., width extending from north to south and length extending from east to west. Such orientation not only avoids direct sun light radiation into the poultry house, but also minimize the spacing of rainwater into poultry houses.

• Width of house: Width of open sided poultry house should be between 18-22 feet and never more than 24 feet. Houses wider than this will not be able to provide ample ventilation during hot weather.

• Length of house: Any convenient length. Because automatic feeding equipment will limit the length of the poultry house, the equipment manufacture should be consulted about the optimum length of the feeding system.

S Most open sided house has a stud that is 8 feet long. The stud represents the distance from the foundation to the roof line.

• In areas when the temperature is exceptionally high throughout the year, the stud length be increased to 10 feet.

• High rise houses, with manure storage areas below the cages or slates should be as high as 14 feet or more the eaves.

• Floor: The floor of each poultry house should be elevated by at least 30 cm from outside ground level to prevent seepage and rainwater entering into the poultry house. The top of the floor should be finished with cement concrete or covered with granite or cement slabs, for efficient cleaning and disinfection.

• Walls: In open sided tropical houses the wall side should not be more than 30 cm height except the pillars. In case of cage house there should not be any long axis side wall above the floor level, for allowing optional cross ventilation and quick drying of cage manure.

• Roof: poultry house roofing may be covered with straw, coconut leaves, light roof, plastic, aluminum or asbestos sheet depending upon the planning and budget of the farmer. Local availability, environment condition and cost factor must be thoroughly probed.

• Partition: Each poultry house may be partitioned into pens of different length depending upon the number of birds per batch. This will be applicable to broiler house where the birds are old in batches. Partitioning of houses also found in layer house for easy maintenance.

• In the case of layers, brooder stage and grower stage may be reared in a single house with layer house separately or separate houses for brooder, grower and layer may also be provided.

• Building material of construction: Choice of selecting the roofing material depend upon the structural strength required, the isolative characteristic, availability, cost of material etc.

• Asbestos sheets or tiles are most commonly used roofing materials. Framings are usually done by wood or steel. Cages and other equipment can be supported either from the roof tresses or from the ground.