Choosing the site: wind, water, access, neighbours, slope, soil
A poultry house is built once and lived with for twenty years. You can change a feeder, repaint a roof, replace a curtain; you never move an 8 m by 40 m house. The site is therefore the first construction decision, and the only one that cannot be corrected. This lesson teaches you to read a plot of land like a builder: where the wind comes from, where the water is, where the truck will pass, who the neighbours are, where the rain goes, and what the soil can carry. Each point is checked on the spot, with a precise action, in both seasons.
13 min read · 5-question quiz at the end
By Abdul Hussein ChoumanFounder of NEXTEKCI · Agnibilékrou hatchery since 2006This lesson is part of Designing and building a poultry house specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.
A poultry house is built once and lived with for twenty years. You can change a feeder, repaint a roof, replace a curtain; you never move an 8 m by 40 m house. The site is therefore the first construction decision, and the only one that cannot be corrected. This lesson teaches you to read a plot of land like a builder: where the wind comes from, where the water is, where the truck will pass, who the neighbours are, where the rain goes, and what the soil can carry. Each point is checked on the spot, with a precise action, in both seasons.
- ✓Assess a plot on six criteria: wind, water, access, neighbours, slope and soil, with the checking action for each
- ✓Measure the yield of a well or borehole and compare it with the need of a house of 1,600 broilers in the hot period
- ✓Place an 8 × 40 m house on a plot: orientation, distances, position of the second house
- ✓Fill in a site scoring grid and decide: build, adapt, or look elsewhere
- The site is the plot and everything around it
- The wind: the free engine of the open-sided house
- Water: the condition that cannot be negotiated
- Access, neighbours and room to grow
- Slope and soil: where the rain goes, what carries the load
- The decision grid: build, adapt or look elsewhere
- Going further
- •Six criteria: wind, water, access, neighbours, slope, soil; each is checked by an action on the spot, in both seasons.
- •Long axis east-west; nothing solid within 10-15 m of the long sides; 16 to 20 m between two houses.
- •1,600 broilers at 5 per m² (8 × 40 m) drink 720 L per day at the peak: plan 850 L per day that the well must give in March.
- •Slope of 1 to 3%, never in a hollow; lateritic soil perfect, black clay to dig out, grey wet soil eliminating.
- •Grid out of 12: 10-12 you build, 7-9 you correct first, less than 7 or a 0 on water you look elsewhere.