Breeding chickens as a business - is it profitable or not, what breed of laying hens to choose for raising at home

Chicken eggs and meat have always been popular products in Russia. The demand and consumption of these goods is growing every year. There are 309 eggs per resident of Russia per year, and this figure is increasing. In 2018, chicken meat production in the country increased by 1.2% to 6.7 million tons.

Of course, the market for meat and eggs is highly competitive, but consumer demand is not completely closed - especially since people are increasingly looking for an environmentally friendly product. How profitable is a chicken business? We will tell you in detail how to open a small farm, we will give approximate calculations of payback and profitability.

1. Which breed of chicken should I choose for home breeding? 2. Egg breeds 3. Meat breeds 4. Conditions for keeping chickens 5. Poultry breeding technologies 6. Business plan for raising chickens 7. Legal registration 8. Personnel 9. Feed 10. Recommendations for feeding 11. Arrangement of the poultry house 12. Arrangement of a walking area 13. Equipment 14. To whom and how to sell finished products? 15. Breeding chickens as a business: profitable or not - profitability and payback

What breed of chickens should I choose for home breeding?

First you need to choose the direction of the business - that is, determine what the birds will be bred for, for eggs or meat. Based on this, we choose the breed: the difference between broilers and laying hens is significant.

If you expect to sell meat, you need diligent birds with a large and soft belly. Specially bred broilers with regular nutrition are able to gain the required weight in 3-4 months.

To hatch eggs, on the contrary, active chickens are needed. It is necessary to equip special areas for walking, provide light and provide other conditions for obtaining eggs of suitable size and quality.

It is customary to buy day-old chicks (and raise them) or pullets 2-3 months old. It is better not to purchase adult birds.

How to ensure the breeding of chickens

To minimize possible financial losses, it is preferable to buy already strong chicks. The optimal age of an individual is at least 3 months. Firstly, the sex of young chickens is practically not determined, and secondly, the risk of mortality in young birds is several times higher than in adult birds.

To avoid having to buy more chicks, you should also have roosters - at least 1 per ten hens.

The sale of chicken meat, as practice shows, is always relevant and profitable - it is not affected by the economic situation in the country or the fall in the level of income of the population. The product belongs to the low price category, at the same time it is necessary and is used almost daily in the diet of every person.

Egg breeds

To obtain eggs, it is important to buy good laying hens and a rooster (1 male for 10 females). The bird must lay at least 280-300 eggs per year.

Popular breeds:

Andalusian blue.
Loman Brown.
White Leghorn.
Brekel.
Italian partridge.
Minorca.
Russian Crested.

Maximum egg production is observed in birds in the first year of life. Then the number of eggs laid decreases by 30-40%. At poultry farms, old chickens are discarded; in households they make up no more than a third of the total flock. The livestock is completely renewed in 2.5-3 years.

It is better to buy pullets yourself at poultry farms (not through markets or resellers). Here the bird comes with documents, you can be sure of its age.

Purchased laying hens are kept in a quarantine zone for up to a month (to be checked for diseases), separately from the general herd.

How to choose laying hens when purchasing

Attention! If you choose low-quality laying chicks, you may not make a profit. There are situations when poultry farmers buy seemingly healthy birds, but after a while the birds begin to get sick and die. You can purchase chickens in two ways: from a farmer at the market or in specialized poultry farm stores.

Advantages of buying chickens at the market from poultry farmers or farmers:

the chickens had good living conditions and the possibility of grazing;
domestic chickens have strong immunity;
were raised on environmentally friendly feed with the addition of grass.

It is important! When buying chickens at a poultry farm, it is worth considering that the birds are raised in closed cages on special feed and synthetic additives. Most often, such laying hens have weak immunity.

Signs of a good layer:

The chicken should not be too thin or too fat.
Well-groomed appearance, unacceptable bald spots on the plumage. The feather cover should be shiny, smooth and shiny.
Clean plumage in the anus.
The skin under the feathers is light pink. If the skin is yellow, the chicken has a bad liver.
The combs and earrings are red, without blue tones.
Broad chest and keel. The dimples on the chest and the relief of the keel indicate that such a bird is not healthy.
Strong, wide-set legs.
Constant activity. The chicken should always be “interested” in the world around her and rummage through the litter. The sleepy appearance of an individual speaks only of one thing - the individual is sick.

Meat breeds

Breeding broilers for meat is another line of chicken business.

Popular breeds:

Foxy Chick.
Rhode Island.
Holoshka.
Cobb-500.
Gibro-6.
Broiler-61.
Ross-708.

It is recommended to purchase chickens from special farms, since it is difficult to breed meat breeds yourself. Chicks (crosses and hybrids) may not retain parental qualities.

Broilers are intensively fattened for 3-4 months, then sent to slaughter. They spend a lot of feed on chickens - to fatten 1 individual in 2 months you will have to spend up to 7 kg of feed.

Birds need quality food and care. They are predisposed to certain diseases. In addition, broilers have a high mortality rate (especially in the first 2 weeks).

How long does a chicken grow for meat?

The growth period of chickens is divided into two phases.

The first 3 months after hatching. Chickens become covered with fluff, their bones become stronger, they develop and grow, but the basis of the skeleton is still cartilage. During this period, a proper diet is important. They must receive plenty of vitamins and minerals for full development.

In addition to mixed feed, the mandatory diet should include hard-boiled crushed eggs, millet, buckwheat, rice porridge, and, if possible, woodlice (this plant is called “chicken grass”, it grows in shaded, damp places and is very rich in vitamins).

From 3 months to six months. Down replaces feathers, cartilage turns into bone. During this period, you should increase the amount of soft food (wet mash) and add dry or steamed grains to the diet. After a complete change of plumage, the feed should be changed to unrefined grain.

It takes almost 3 months to raise broilers at home, after which they are sent for slaughter.

Conditions for keeping chickens

For the comfort and health of the chickens, for the productivity of the flock in the poultry house, it is necessary to create suitable conditions:

Lighting. To increase egg production in the poultry house, you need to have good lighting.
Maintaining the required temperature. Birds do not grow well and lay eggs in temperatures that are too low or high. The normal range is 12-27°C. For the development of chicks, a temperature of 27-30°C is needed.
The floor in the poultry house should be insulated with boards, straw and sawdust. Straw is only clean.
Birds keep themselves clean. You just need to put a container with sand or ash. The poultry house is cleaned every week and disinfected every month.
Chickens should have constant access to fresh air (good ventilation).
To relieve birds from stress, the house must be soundproofed.
It is necessary to place convenient feeders and drinkers in the chicken coop.

Basic steps to create a mini poultry farm

Let's look at the step-by-step opening of a mini-poultry farm using a specific example. The so-called budget option.

Determine the number of goals.
Choosing a room and method of keeping chickens. The small area of the farmstead makes one lean towards keeping chickens in cages. Moreover, this is economically justified; further we will analyze why.
We choose the breed of chickens, having decided on the breed and the direction, you get the opportunity to choose the type of cage.
We determine the equipment: we look at the presence of devices supplied with the cage that make keeping chickens comfortable for their maintenance and health.
We choose an incubator for 120 or 500 eggs.
We find chicken suppliers.
Planning the food supply

Poultry breeding technologies

At the planning stage, a chicken breeding technology is selected. There are 2 main options:

Floor. The bird retains freedom of movement and gets the opportunity to walk in the fresh air. This technology is more suitable for laying birds, since high activity increases egg production. Farmers can save on maintaining the flock by making homemade feed based on food waste instead of expensive purchased feed.
Cellular. This option is more often used for breeding meat breeds. Chickens don't need a lot of activity that causes them to lose calories - that's why they are kept in cages. They are fed with compound feeds, which allow them to quickly increase their meat mass. The cage breeding method involves more expenses and labor - feed is expensive, and bird cages need to be cleaned regularly.

Purchasing chickens and keeping them

The business idea of raising chickens can be successfully implemented only if the livestock is successfully formed. If you have no experience in keeping domestic chickens, then it is better to seek help from specialists who will evaluate the birds on offer and help you select the best.

It is advisable to purchase chickens at the age of 4-5 months, by which time they are ready to lay eggs and are less susceptible to diseases. However, you can also purchase one or two month old young animals, which cost much less. But in this case, there is a high risk of getting a rooster instead of a chicken, as well as losing part of the livestock due to infections, which often occur in chickens.

Some experts advise those who are building a chicken business from scratch, without experience in keeping poultry, to first purchase chickens that are already laying eggs. A couple of dozen laying hens will allow you to understand the features of this process and thereby determine development prospects for yourself. The success of chicken farming largely depends on the diet of the chickens. These birds are very undemanding when it comes to food. Any grass, vegetable tops, cereals, and mixed feed are suitable as feed.

To increase egg production and the quality characteristics of eggs, it is necessary to include vitamin supplements, chalk, and eggshells in the diet. For breeding meat chickens, it is very important to choose birds that will ensure the brooding process. A chicken that is assiduous and has a large and soft belly can handle this. For hatching, it is necessary to select eggs of the correct shape with minimal contamination. The incubation period for chickens is forty days. After this time, chicks appear and the population begins to grow.

Advice: it is advisable to purchase chickens not from poultry farms, but from farms. It is the birds that differ from farmers in good health and a high level of egg production.

Business plan for raising chickens

According to the terms of the plan, the businessman develops an egg business - that is, he breeds chickens to produce and sell eggs, not meat. Then the initial costs will be lower - there will be no need to purchase refrigeration equipment or organize a place for slaughtering poultry. The business can be started with small investments and then expanded.

Table 1. Initial costs for a chicken breeding business.

Expense item	Cost, rub.
Registration	50 thousand
Creation and equipment of a chicken coop	150 thousand
Purchase of pullets, 400 pcs. (Hisex Brown breed)	95 thousand
Feed (for a month)	20 thousand
Salary, 2 people.	40 thousand
Additional expenses	90 thousand
Total	445 thousand

The sale of products is expected in a city with a population of more than 1 million people. Additional costs include utility bills, promotion, and packaging. Taxes do not appear in the calculations.

Calculation of profitability and potential profit

With properly organized nutrition and housing conditions, the income from 100 laying hens will be 82-85 eggs per day. We will build on these numbers.

Compare the profit from their sale and the cost of ready-made combined feed and you will understand that keeping laying hens is quite profitable even at the initial stages. Considering the amount of food a chicken eats in a month, it will cost approximately 50-60 rubles, and 20-25 eggs it brings will be sold for 100-120 rubles. The income from one head will be 50-70 rubles.

There are three options for breeding chickens for eggs:

Buying day-old chicks and raising them yourself until they begin laying eggs;
Buying one-month-old chickens and raising them independently until the first eggs appear;
Purchase of 3-4 month old young chickens.

On average, egg-laying chickens begin to lay eggs at 4-5 months . If you plan to recoup your investment as quickly as possible, then the latter option is best for you. But these chickens are not so cheap. Maybe it would be more profitable to buy day-old chicks and tinker with raising them in order to save money? You just need to take into account that the actual survival rate of day-old chicks is, at best, 70-80%.

Below is a table showing all three options for keeping and feeding laying chickens up to 5 months. Prices for feed and poultry are taken as the average for Russia for 2016.

In total, the savings are small, but due to the lower survival rate of day-old chicks, the cost of all three options is approximately the same. Obviously, in order not to bother with raising small chickens, it is better to immediately buy 3-4 month old birds, which, depending on the breed and condition, can hatch within a month.

If you purchase hundreds of chickens, the initial investment will be 36,500 rubles.

In the future, it will cost about 65 rubles to feed one chicken per month. Of course, in the summer this amount may decrease due to a large amount of pasture, but it is better to make calculations based on the maximum costs than to be disappointed later. To feed one hundred chickens a month it will cost about 6,500 rubles.

Within a year after they are laid, laying hens of a good breed are capable of laying up to 300 eggs each. This figure is based on the molting period, which lasts from one to two months each year, during which hens do not lay eggs. The average cost of one egg is currently about 7 rubles.

Thus, if we assume that each hen produces about 25 eggs per month, then the average income from one hen per month will be 175 rubles. The income from one hundred chickens per month will be 17,500 rubles. And in a year it will be 210,000 rubles.

If we subtract the cost of feeding for the month from 17,500 rubles, we get 11 thousand rubles. One thousand rubles is deducted for various additional expenses.

In total, the net profit per month from one hundred chickens is 10 thousand rubles.

For a year it turns out to be about 120 thousand rubles. If you calculate the profitability of this business based on the production profitability formula, you can get the following: purchase costs add up to maintenance costs. It turns out 36500 + 6500x12 = 114,500 rubles. In total, after a year, all costs were recouped and there was even a small plus, that is, the profitability of this business was about 54%.

But it’s not just eggs that generate income in the chicken business. Chicken manure is in good demand among gardeners. And day-old chicks are happily taken apart for rearing by owners of private farmsteads.

Chicken products are also good because there are usually no difficulties in marketing them, because not a single table in the house, not a single confectionery dish or bakery product, as well as many recipes for dishes all over the world, can do without eggs.

Legal registration

If you plan to open a small enterprise or household, the business is conducted in the form of an individual entrepreneur (individual). If you plan to have a larger farm, the LLC (legal entity) form is suitable.

When registering, the OKVED code 01.47 “Raising poultry” is indicated.

To start a business, you need to visit many authorities and obtain the following documents:

certificate of registration of private household plot (personal subsidiary plot);
contract for veterinary services at the regional veterinary station;
permission from SES and Fire Supervision;
conclusion of Rospotrebnadzor.

The most difficult thing is to get positive conclusions and permissions. To organize a farm, it is important to study all the requirements and standards that apply to chicken coops and the conditions for keeping poultry. All this must be taken into account when organizing the farm.

Business registration

If in the future you plan to expand your business and increase the number of birds, it is worth registering your business as a peasant farm (KFK) or obtaining the status of an individual entrepreneur. This will require assembling a minimum package of documents - an application for registration of a peasant farm, an agreement on the creation of a peasant farm, a receipt for payment of state duty, a copy of the passport, an application for the transition to a special tax regime. The tax will be about 6% , but will significantly simplify the further process of obtaining product certificates. You will also need permission from the fire department and documents from veterinarians.

Chicken farm: nuances of opening from business registration to purchasing birds and calculating profitability

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Top 10 most productive egg breeds and crosses for breeding. Factors to consider when choosing poultry for the farm

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Staff

To organize a small farm you will not need many workers. At the start, the herd will be 400 heads - 1 hired employee will monitor this number.

It is necessary to organize the delivery of food, all necessary products to the farm and transportation of the finished product to the buyer. Therefore, a driver (with a car) will be required.

An accountant will prepare reports and document flow. You can find a specialist remotely by contacting an accounting firm.

At first, the functions of a sales manager will be performed directly by the businessman.

When organizing a household, the owner himself can do the work - this will reduce monthly expenses. But when expanding the farm, workers will have to be hired.

Purchase of livestock

The second stage in the proper organization of such farming is the selection and purchase of young animals.
That is, for the business in question, laying hens, chickens and other breeds of birds are purchased to produce eggs and chicken meat. At the same time, you need to move on to purchasing no earlier than arranging the premises and registering the business. You also need to get an idea of what kind of poultry is more profitable to breed for business. The right choice of poultry guarantees business success and demand for products. The consumer is not always ready to purchase products of an exotic nature; accordingly, one should stick to familiar breeds.

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Business plan for raising quails at home

Several types of crosses are defined, the classification of which is based on the products received for sale:

meat;
egg;
broiler;
mixed (combining egg and meat crosses).

According to the results of market analysis, as well as the experience of the entrepreneur, quick profit from the sale of the products in question is realized in the production of eggs.

The chicken egg business also requires the entrepreneur to select the appropriate types of laying hens:

Leghorn.
Kuchinsky anniversary.
Hisex.
Pushkinskaya.
Loman Brown.

The presented breeds are recognized as the most productive types of chickens. When purchasing heads, you need to immediately form a herd, one of which includes one rooster and ten hens.

The age of hens laying eggs should not exceed five months. The advantage of this option is that the cost of young animals will be lower compared to the purchase of adult heads. In addition, keeping laying hens will also save on costs, since the payback period is reduced by one and a half times.

If you buy very young birds, whose age does not reach four weeks, then you will have to pay one hundred rubles per head. Older young animals will cost the entrepreneur three hundred rubles.

In this case, purchases must be made in the spring and only in industrial incubators specializing in specific breeds.

Feed

When breeding broilers, it is important to choose the right feeding system, which will allow the chickens to quickly gain meat and bring their weight to the desired level.

2 ways to feed meat birds:

extensive;
intensive.

The extensive fattening method does not require large expenses - it is suitable for entrepreneurs who do not have the money for large investments. Chickens are given compound feed and regular grain with various additives - boiled potatoes, cake and meal, vegetables, herbs, meat and bone meal. In the first 2-3 months, feeding is high-calorie, then the energy value of food decreases (chickens should not be overfed).

Intensive fattening requires additional investments, but this technique is better suited for breeding broilers. The birds are kept in cages and fed with ready-made feed. She moves little and grows quickly.

We purchase young animals

Having set up a chicken coop and created the proper conditions for raising chickens, you can move on to the stage of purchasing young animals. Here it is worth deciding for what purpose you plan to raise the bird - for meat, for eggs, or both.

When planning to breed laying hens for eggs, you need to figure out how to determine the optimal age of the young and the breed. It is recommended to opt for egg-meat breeds. They produce about 250 eggs per year and fresh chicken meat.

As for age, it is better to take 2-3 month old young animals. In the case of purchasing day-old or week-old chicks, there is a high probability of their mortality. In addition, at 2 months of age it is already possible to determine gender. You should not take only laying hens. You should buy young animals at the rate of 1 rooster per 10 hens. This will avoid spending money on purchasing chickens in the future.

There are two ways to raise chickens:

Laying eggs under the hen.
Laying eggs in the incubator.

How many young animals need to be purchased to begin with? The answer to this question depends on the area allocated for the chicken coop and the options for keeping poultry:

Floor breeding of birds – up to 20 birds can be accommodated on 10 square meters.
Cages – up to 50 individuals (depending on the size of the cage).

Feeding recommendations

It is necessary to organize a balanced diet for the bird so that individuals receive the required amount of elements. You should choose industrial feeds carefully - not all are suitable.

You can prepare the grain mixture yourself. This way you can reduce costs and choose the optimal food recipe.

The most popular recipe is:

corn – 5 kg;
wheat – 1.5 kg;
barley – 1 kg;
peas – 0.5 kg;
sunflower cake – 0.8 kg;
flour (fish, meat and bone) – 0.8 kg;
feed yeast – 0.3 kg;
chopped or fresh grass – 0.5 kg;
vitamin and mineral supplement - 0.15 kg;
salt – 0.03 kg.

Chickens really need calcium, so chalk and charcoal containing this element should be constantly added to the feed. Salt is also useful - it improves digestion.

The daily feed requirement for one chicken is 130-150 grams.

Layer hen nutrition: recommendations for fertile flocks

What do fertile laying hens eat? It is most convenient to make compound feed as the basis of the diet - it contains all the nutrients and vitamins that animals need. In addition to feed, birds eat any grain, including corn, home-grown vegetables (boiled potatoes, pumpkin), bone meal, flax and sunflower seeds, legumes (also boiled), cakes, meal, table salt. Sometimes 5-10 grams of yeast are added to the feed.

It is important to know that birds also feed on “inedible” foods: chalk, ash, fine gravel, eggshells, fine gravel and even shell chips. It is important to include grass in the diet of laying hens (up to 20% of the total diet) - dried or fresh meadow grasses, clover, alfalfa, lettuce, peas, dill. Stinging nettle can sometimes be given to birds. In the cold season, pine needles will be indispensable - they contain a lot of carotene and vitamin C.

If the owner prepares the bird’s diet independently, without the use of compound feed, it is important to add a sufficient amount of protein to it. Chickens are not herbivorous birds; they need animal protein. This role can be played by dairy products, meat and fish waste, including bone meal, and even earthworms.

Birds in any type of housing (cage or aviary) are fed 2-3 times a day: full feeding in the morning and evening, and mineral and vitamin supplements in the afternoon. The serving size per individual depends on the breed, but on average it is about 100-150 grams.

Under no circumstances should you feed your chickens spoiled food from your home table. Also, you should not give fresh bread to birds - it provokes intestinal problems. Rusks are much better. It is necessary to monitor the reaction of chickens to nutrition and their egg production, and, if necessary, adjust it. Overfeeding birds is extremely harmful - the quality of the eggs will decrease.

The main danger to the bird population is disease.

Poultry house arrangement

You can raise chickens only in a country house or in a village - that is, outside urban conditions. When building a chicken coop and choosing flooring, you need to proceed from the following calculation: per 1 sq. m can accommodate 2 birds. Up to 6-7 heads coexist in a cage.

The poultry house should be warm and light (lit at least 13-14 hours a day). We pay special attention to the floor. The height of the insulation is at least 15 cm (optimally up to 50 cm).

Ventilation must be arranged so that rodents cannot enter the room. The latter is an additional risk factor, since mice/rats carry diseases and infect birds. If you make ordinary windows, they need to be covered with protective nets.

Drinkers and feeders are located along the walls, and nests are located in the corners. The height of the room should not be lower than 2 m; it is better to reinforce it with wooden logs, and stitch the racks with boards. It is better to make the roof traditionally pitched.

Expenses

We will consider a cycle of 11 months. This is the period when the chicken began to lay eggs, but has not yet started molting. There is no point in keeping chickens for more than this period, especially breeds for egg production. After one and a half years, the egg production of chickens decreases and their maintenance becomes unprofitable.

And also, as a basis for the calculation, we will take the floor keeping of laying hens - this is the most acceptable option for households and cottages. In this case, fewer heads will perish per unit area, but you will not have to spend money on cages and additional equipment (ventilation, manure removal system).

Pullets

Of course, you can grow them yourself, but it’s more profitable to buy them. You need to take five-month-old chickens. The average price for factory culling is 350 rubles per head. This amount goes to cost. When choosing pullets for counting, we will not take into account mortality, since with proper care of the bird this practically does not happen.

Feed

This position can be viewed from two sides. The first is that you can make compound feed yourself. Its quality will be higher, but it will also be more expensive. The price is affected by the purchase of grain, protein supplements, vitamins and minerals. Do not forget about special equipment for its preparation.

The second and more acceptable option is to buy good quality feed. Its average wholesale price is 25 rubles per kilogram. We do not take into account delivery costs!

We will feed the chickens for 11 months at a rate of 150 grams per day. It turns out that one chicken will receive 49.5 kilograms of feed in 330 days, which in monetary terms will be 1238 rubles.

To this amount we add 350 rubles for the purchase of pullets and we get 1,587 rubles.

Electrical heating and lighting

Chickens tolerate the cold quite well, but in order to produce eggs it is necessary to create conditions close to ideal. This means that the coop should be warm and dry, as well as light 14 hours a day. To maintain the stated egg production, the chicken should not suffer.

If we take only the winter months for calculation and take into account that a chicken coop for 120 heads (36 sq. m.) will be heated by a two-kilowatt convector around the clock, this will require 4,320 kilowatts. Let's take the average tariff of 4 rubles 50 kopecks, in money it will be 19,440 rubles. We divide this amount by 120 heads and get 162 rubles.

Next we add 1587+162=1749 rubles. But that's not all. The chicken coop needs to be heated in March and November. The mode here is not 24/7, but let’s count 60 days of 12 hours. We get 1440 kilowatts, which we multiply by the tariff and divide by the number of livestock. 1440*4.5=6480. We divide the amount of 6480 by 120 chickens and get 54 rubles. Approximately 20 rubles per head are spent on lighting. Next, we add the received amounts to the cost price. 1749+54+20=1823 rubles.

Litter

In order not to clean up droppings every day and to make your work easier, deep litter (sawdust) is placed in the chicken coop. This layer not only acts as a “diaper”, but also allows you to retain heat in the room. The service life of deep litter is one year; the cost of 12 cubes of sawdust is 3,000 rubles. 3000/120=25 (based on 120 heads). We add the amount of 25 rubles to the cost price of 1823 and get 1848 rubles.

But you also need to add bacteria to the litter, the cost of which is approximately 1800 rubles, which will add another 15 rubles to the cost per head. Total 1848+15=1863 rubles.

Medicines and vitamins

Poultry flocks need to be regularly given vitamin prophylaxis. This will avoid death. A complex of vitamins and minerals (including vitamin D, which is extremely necessary in winter) and an antiseptic stimulant will cost 2,000 rubles per cycle. In terms of one head it will be 17 rubles (at the rate of 120 heads per cycle). 17+1863=1880 rubles.

Chicken coop

The issue is controversial, but if you build a room of 36 square meters from scratch. m, it will cost about 150 thousand rubles. 120 heads can be comfortably accommodated in this area. The chicken coop should last 10 years and it makes sense to simply calculate its depreciation. We immediately deduce the result - 125 rubles per head.

As a result, we get 2005 rubles. This is the cost of purchasing and maintaining one chicken for one cycle of 11 months.

Arranging a walking area

Laying hens need physical activity for better egg production. Therefore, they need a place to walk (aviary). You can buy a ready-made mesh enclosure or create one yourself. It is better to place it on the eastern side of the chicken coop - on the side where the sun rises. We place a manhole in the building so that birds can easily enter the walking area.

The fence of the enclosure should be mesh so that sunlight penetrates through it. Having natural light is important for hens (talking about laying hens).

The height of the fence should reach 150-180 cm. Then the birds will not be able to fly over the fence and scatter across the area.

In the enclosure under a small canopy you need to install equipment: drinking bowls, feeders, boxes with sand and ash.

Main hazards for poultry farming

The main danger to the bird population is disease. Laying hens are threatened by several diseases at once, which can destroy half of the individuals, make the chicken coop and aviary unsuitable for keeping birds, and deprive the owner of profit. Among these diseases are:

Typhoid or pullorosis. The first sign of this disease is a disorder of the digestive organs. Then the chickens become lethargic, lose weight and refuse to feed. This infection spreads quickly within the livestock through airborne droplets and can become chronic.
Avian cholera or pasteurellosis. The disease is spread by a harmful microorganism, Pasteurella, which is spread by wild birds and rodents. With avian cholera, birds also become inactive, refuse to feed and drink a lot, mucous discharge appears from the nasal cavity, and the joints become swollen and distorted.
Salmonellosis. Young livestock are most susceptible to this disease. Salmonella bacteria easily penetrate the shell, enter the feed and are transmitted from bird to bird. The most obvious signs of this disease are swollen eyelids and watery eyes, swollen limbs and difficulty breathing.

Any avian disease is easier to prevent than to cure , since infections and bacteria are very quickly transmitted within the population. Monitor the quality of the birds' diet and the presence of sufficient vitamins in the diet. Chickens do not like drafts and cold. Keep them away from rodents. When the disease is detected, organize disinfection of all premises where birds are kept.

Equipment

After a place for the poultry house has been found, the building itself needs to be erected. Specialized materials and construction plans are available for sale. If your budget allows, you can order a ready-made poultry house from professionals.

In order to save money, you can do it simpler: during construction, use available building materials (boards, slate, brick, cinder block, other types of building stone).

In the chicken coop we organize:

nests;
perch;
vestibule;
feeders and drinkers;
shield for collecting litter;
walking area.

The poultry house must be insulated and protected from precipitation. Inside you need to equip a ventilation system, install fluorescent lamps or IR lamps. If there is a large flock, automatic drinkers and a food supply system are installed in the chicken coop.

If the business is focused on selling meat, you need to set up an area for poultry slaughter and buy refrigeration units for storing the product.

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Reviews

Reviews about the chicken business are mostly positive. Chicken is a typical and unpretentious bird for our latitudes. And the field of activity here is quite wide: you can keep chickens for eggs, you can get meat from them, and it is no less profitable to sell young animals or eggs for breeding. Profit will not be long in coming if you are inspired by this business and approach it consciously and prepared. Under optimal conditions, you can reach 100% profitability within 8-12 months of activity.

To whom and how to sell finished products?

There are several directions for selling eggs and chicken meat:

Cooperation with retail and wholesale retail stores. With large customers, the poultry farm will get back on its feet much faster.
Sales at food markets. You can sell goods to other sellers or open your own outlet.
Sales to private individuals. Chicken eggs and meat can be sold to residents of the locality where the farm itself is located. You can also organize days when the car will go into the city and sell products to residents of the block and nearby houses.
HoReCa segment. Sales to restaurants and canteens.

To market and increase sales, advertising is needed. How can you advertise a product:

develop a brand and marketing attributes;
offer goods at prices favorable to the buyer;
conduct BTL promotions;
spread information about meat and eggs through word of mouth.

HOW TO BRING IT?

On average, one factory-made chicken costs about 7-10 rubles; elite breeds can cost more. You can buy chicken both in Belarus on specialized farms and abroad. of the Minsk regional customs explained to AiF , for the import of chickens, ducks, and eggs in shells, it is necessary to carry out a customs declaration using a passenger customs declaration and present an import permit and a veterinary certificate of the country of departure. This applies to all breeds of birds.

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Who shouldn't eat eggs and why?

If the imported goods are goods for personal use (imported not for business activities), then the norms for duty-free import of such goods are 500 euros and 25 kg, and in case of entry into the territory of Belarus more than once every three calendar months - 300 euros and 20 kg. Therefore, if you decide to bring a dozen chickens for personal use, you will only need the previously specified documents.