How To Setup A Poultry Farm For Broiler And Egg Production

Setting up a poultry farm is really a tasking thing to do. No wonder most people who have lot of money to invest normally consults someone else to do that for them. In today's post, we will be talking about how to set up a poultry farm by yourself. This will save you a lot of cost though it is still advisable you meet the right people before venturing into this business. You need to pay visits to several poultry farms, establish a good relationship with owners or managers and learn from their experience. Remember, nobody knows it all and everyday we learn, so don't see yourself as having known all about poultry business after reading this post, but rather take a step further by going to farms and seeing how the things which we will be discussing here are been carried out.

Another issue of concern here is that the cost of materials and other things mentioned here is only an approximation. It is advised you take a step by moving to your immediate environment, get to know the cost of these things and compare it with the cost in other places. These will show that you're really serious about this business.

Finding out the cost will also give you a clearer understanding of how much you will be investing into this business and your initial start up capital.
For the purpose of unambiguity, we will be focusing on setting up a poultry farm for egg production(layers rearing) and meat production(broilers rearing). If you don't know the different areas to invest in poultry business, then you need to visit our previous post on introduction into poultry business. Remember, you can invest in these two areas if you have the resources to do so but I will still advice you start with one and venture into other areas as your poultry business grow.

                  

What Will You Need For Your Poultry Setup:

• Land
• Poultry House Construction or building
• Feed And Day-old-chicks Or Point-Of-Lay Birds
• Poultry Equipment
• Vaccination
• Documentation And Effective Management
• Marketing

Now, we will looking at each of these factors extensively with an aim of giving  you an idea of what it really takes to set up a poultry. Are you ready? Take a cup of coffee and relax while we set off.

Land:
Land is an essential commodity in offline business. This is no business that goes on in space unless you have been there to find out. Land is actually needed in poultry farming because you build your poultry farm on land. This land may be rented or purchased. It all depends on your resources.

In poultry business, it is best you buy land in rural areas. This is because of some factors:

• Affordability: land in rural areas are highly affordable compared to urban areas. In Lagos and Ogun states, lands sells for N400,000-N600,000 in rural areas. In Imo and Abia states, lands sells for N200,000-N400,000 in rural areas. From the figure above, land is the most capital intensive factor to consider in poultry business setup, so if already have one, it will save a lot of cost.
• Pollution: In the poultry business,there are two forms of pollution that is common, noise pollution and air pollution. This is not tolerable in the urban areas due to Government policy. That's why it is advised you get a land in the rural area to run this business where there won't be any attacks by neighbours and the government.
• Cost of labour: The cost of labour in rural areas is much more cheaper than in urban areas. So this should also be the reason why you should site your poultry in rural area.

Poultry Housing Construction: Having acquired land to setup your poultry up your poultry business, the next agenda to consider is the construction of the poultry farm. There are different poultry layout and design but there are three most commonly used ones. These are:

• Free range or roam system: In this case, the birds are allowed to roam about in search of food. They fend for themselves and save the farmer the cost of feeding. They are not paid much attention to and can easily be lost by stealing, disease, hunger, or even killed by a predator. It is not advisable to make use of these system if you wish to venture into commercial poultry business because of the many shortcomings.
• Deep litter method: This is similar to the free range in the sense that birds are allowed to roam about but in this case, in an enclosed area. The floor is usually covered with  saw dust, this helps in reducing cracking of eggs and also makes removal of waste easy. The faeces are usually removed in intervals of 5-7 days. The faeces can be sold as manure to farmers. It is not as expensive as the battery cage method neither is it as less secured as the free range method. It is the mostly commonly  used poultry house though it has its own shortcomings. It leads to production of dirty and cracked eggs, low egg production since the birds roam about and expend most of the energy that could have been conserved for laying eggs. Another shortcoming of this method is that the fowls tend to protect its egg from pickers thereby making it difficult to pick.With N10000-20,000, one can   construct a deep litter poultry house depending on the size.

• Battery Cage: This is the best and the most expensive poultry house that I have seen. It has many advantages to the previous methods. It increases egg production since movement of birds are restricted. It only eats, drinks and lay eggs. Also, there is no direct contact with birds and eggs, therefore dirtying and cracking of eggs is reduced. This also helps in reducing risk of infection and cost of medication since the birds are not directly in contact with faeces which could be harmful to the birds. Not just that, you can easily feed your birds without much wastage of feed using this method unlike the deep litter method.But despite how good this method is, it still has some shortcomings of which are the bad smell which the faeces produce, the cost and the health hazard on the farmer due to the bad smell. But despite this, it is the most effective poultry houIt cost about N70,000-N100,000 to get an imported battery cage depending on the housing capacity. It is advised you go for the one you can afford and manage.

Now, in addition to these, you will need other materials which are some bundles of roofing sheet(5 bundles for a pen housing 500 birds), Cement and sand/stone for flooring, net, planks and workmanship for the labourers. This may cost up to N70,000 depending on the size of your farm.

Poultry Equipment: Now you have successfully setup a housing for your birds, next is to purchase some equipment for your farm. Don't make the mistake of purchasing chicks before buying equipment as the birds will need this equipment on getting to the farm and you have no excuse else you start losing your birds on getting to the farm.
Now, what are the equipment needed for your farm:

• feeders or feeding troughs
• Drinkers
• Perches
• Egg Trays andCrates
• Lightening system
• Waste Disposal
•  Egg Crates
• Saw Dust
• Incubators
• Heaters or brooders 
• Nest

Now depending on the quantity of birds you are housing, these equipment may cost over N80,000.

Feeding And Day-Old-Chicks Or Point-of-Lay Birds: Feed is one vital need you will provide before  bringing in your birds. Day-old-chicks are newly hatched chicks while point-of-lay birds are birds between 20-22 weeks of age. They are likely to start laying at 27th  week. If you want to start with egg production, you can choose to bring in day-old-chicks or point-of-lay birds. Point-Of-lay birds are more expensive than day-old-chicks but the good thing about point-of-lay birds is that you don't loss much in the course of transportation. Even in the farm, you will lose more of the day-old-chicks than point-of-lay birds to outbreak of diseases, malnutrition, struggle for existance e.t.c. Also, you will need to feed the Day-old-chicks till they get to point of lay. Day-old-chicks cost between N170-N300 while point-of-lay birds cost between N750-N950. This prices vary from place to place so you are advised to carry out a thorough market survey before purchasing.  So, it all depends on your initial capital, but if you are a beginner, I will advice you start with point-of-lay birds because of the less risk involve.
Now, if you plan going into meat production(broilers rearing), you can start with the Day-old-chicks.

Vaccination: Now you are bringing your chicks or bird to a new environment, which they have not adapted to, there may be possibility of the presence of infectious pathogens in the environment, the question is how do you protect your birds from infections? I have seen a case where a farmer lost 200 birds to infection. This can be discouraging especially if you are a beginner. That's why I advice that immediately you bring your birds, the next line of action is to get vaccines. Vaccines are medication you give to your birds to get them immune from disease. It is important you give the vaccines as prescribed and you isolate any sick bird to avoid the spread of disease to other birds.

Documentation And Effective Management: Having setup your farm, is now time to get to work. You have to be taking record of every single activity that goes on the farm. This will enable you monitor you growth rate, make sure nothing goes missing and enables you to make good decisions.
You will need to keep record of:

• Number of eggs laid in a day
• Number of eggs sold
• Number of eggs consumed
• Number of eggs cracked or broken
• Number of birds sold
• Number of birds alive 
• Number of birds dead
• Quantity of feed consumed
• Expenses

All these above are supposed to be accounted for everyday.
You will also take record of the amount spent on worker(s), vaccines, maintenance and transportation at the end of the month.
By so doing, you will know if you are losing or gaining in the business.
You will also need to monitor your farm by yourself at the early stage. This will give you an idea of what is expected of the farm to avert the possibility of your workers taking advantage of your little experience in the business. So you stay to gain experience and can latter move on if you wish to.

Marketing: This is a crucial part of your business setup. If you make any mistake at this point, it will really tell on your business. So you should be careful at the kind of decisions you make at this point. 
Remember, one of the secret of creating good customer relationship is to make your customers happy. Of course if you make them happy, they will always come to patronize you. Now, how do you make them happy? Join me in my next post on how to get customers and keep them coming.