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Breeding broiler chicken It is considered one of the most profitable types of poultry farming. The broiler grows quickly, produces excellent meat and large eggs. If you regularly care for and feed the brood, properly support it with vitamins and treat it, you can raise up to a hundred well-fed chickens during the period from March to October. But before you buy a broiler chicken, you need to find a room for a mini-poultry farm or make a chicken coop for broilers with your own hands.
Conditions for raising broilers
Before choosing where and how to build a chicken coop for broilers, you will need to delve into and understand the technology of modern broiler poultry farming. The methods of feeding and keeping poultry, and the chicken coops themselves for broiler chickens, are somewhat different from the traditional village or country farming scheme:
- The vast majority of broilers for sale are raised in cages. Up to 10 adult broilers “live” in each cage;
- Chicken coops for keeping broiler chickens are arranged in the form of nets placed on wooden or metal racks in several tiers.The nets are equipped with external feeders and drip drinkers, which allows rational use of feed and water;
- The nature of the room chosen for the chicken coop has practically no effect on the maintenance of the broiler; it is enough if the temperature inside is +12OFrom to +18OC for adult birds and compartment with + 35OC is for chickens.
You can make a chicken coop for broilers in a utility room or metal garage, as in the video:
or in a wooden shed, in principle this does not matter, the main thing is to maintain the necessary parameters of humidity, temperature and ensure good ventilation.
Otherwise, an outbreak of influenza or intestinal infection could destroy the entire brood of broilers in contact with each other in the chicken coop.
Therefore, when choosing a material and method for making a chicken coop, it is necessary to choose the right material and device so that disinfection and sanitation do not affect the design of the cages and equipment in the chicken coop, as in the video:
Cage design
The dimensions and shape of the cage for an adult bird are shown in the drawings and photos.
The height of the cage usually does not exceed 50 cm, which is quite enough for the normal maintenance of ten adult broilers in one cage. But if the bird is often sick, it makes sense to increase the ceiling height to 55-60 cm, this will improve the access to fresh air that the birds so need. The most successful dimensions and shape of a simple cell are shown in the photo.
The front mesh is made of two strips, the lower strip is covered with vertical rods with a pitch of 60 mm, the upper part is covered with a fine steel mesh. The total height of the cage is just over 50 cm.
The floor is also made of fine mesh; this does not prevent the broiler from moving around the cage, but ensures that the droppings are dumped into steel trays installed below.
The frame and side walls of the cage can be made of timber and boards, OSB boards or plywood. Inside the cage, two drip-type drinkers must be installed in opposite corners of the cage.
How to properly build a chicken coop for keeping broilers
The easiest way to make a chicken coop for broilers is in a barn on a country site. Room for broiler house in the country slightly different in type and size from the classic village chicken coop:
- Cages with birds are located in a chicken coop in at least three tiers, so the floor or floor covering must support the weight of the entire structure of the racks, regardless of the structure of the walls and ceiling;
- The volume of the room and the height of the ceilings should be slightly larger than a regular chicken coop due to the need to ensure good ventilation and a uniform flow of fresh air to the nets.
In addition, it is necessary to ensure normal insulation of the walls and ceiling, otherwise it will be quite difficult to heat a full-size chicken coop in cold weather. Broilers by nature have a rather weak immune system and get sick easily, so the question is heating the chicken coop especially important.
Arrangement of the foundation and walls of the chicken coop
The easiest way to build a chicken coop for broilers in the country is as an extension to the house. Firstly, this way you can save on building materials and heating the room. Secondly, it simplifies the care and cleaning of the chicken coop in bad weather. Thirdly, a small predator, a fox or a weasel, will not risk poking into the broiler chicken coop if a person is nearby.
To build a chicken coop, use a classic MZL foundation, attached to the base of a summer house or summer kitchen, in the shape of the letter P. Initially, you will need to dig a trench 30 cm wide and 40 cm deep, install formwork, lay waterproofing from roofing material and fill it with concrete.
A day later, the base part of the chicken coop base is laid out of brick. A fine-mesh mesh with a width of at least 60 cm is laid on the blind area and plinth. It can be secured to concrete and brick with dowels. Inside the foundation, the fertile layer of soil is removed to the depth of concrete laying, crushed stone 7-10 cm thick is poured, foam plastic sheets are laid, after which a concrete screed is poured.
The walls of the chicken coop can be laid out of brick or assembled on a wooden frame from edged boards.
Which option is best to build with your own hands at the dacha depends, first of all, on the availability of available funds and materials for construction. The roof of a chicken coop for broilers is best made with a gable roof from boards and leftover lumber. After treating the room with antiseptics and fire retardants, a roofing material made of roofing material or bitumen shingles is glued on.
Interior arrangement of a broiler house
Shelving for cages can be made from timber or wooden slats. As a rule, racks are placed along the walls, with a passage left in the center for cleaning the room and cages.
The floor is covered with a layer of sand and sawdust and the filling is changed at least once every two months. The average load per tier does not exceed 100 kg, so most of the cage parts and racks can be made of wood.
For professional broiler rearing, experts recommend using ready-made steel cages.
Experts recommend: before each placement of birds for fattening, the rack and the entire chicken coop room must be thoroughly disinfected. During the process of raising a broiler, a bactericidal lamp is periodically brought into the chicken coop and turned on for 10-15 minutes. Of course, the cages with broilers are covered with wooden screens during sanitation.
For heating, you can use a ceiling-mounted infrared heater or a coal stove. If the chicken coop is built as an extension to the house, then it is easier and more reliable to heat the room by diverting part of the flue gases from the stove in the house into tubular registers installed along the cages with broilers.
Conclusion
Cage rearing of broilers allows for good weight gain and productivity of laying hens. But the inactivity of a broiler always affects its health, so the diet of birds raised in cages, as a rule, contains a large number of additives, growth stimulants and antibiotics. Such a decision is justified when it comes to selling meat or its deep processing. For personal consumption, competent poultry farmers raise broilers in an open way, like an ordinary chicken, with walking and pasture feeding.
