The document provides guidelines for the design and construction of poultry farms. It discusses planning principles such as minimizing environmental impact and disease risk. It describes the typical components of a poultry farm including breeder sheds, layer sheds, and grower sheds. Site selection considerations are outlined such as avoiding flooding, ensuring suitable road access, and maintaining adequate distance from residential areas. Terrain layout examples are also shown.

2. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION OF POULTRY
FARM
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. NASIR MUKHTAR
SUBMITTED BY:
Waqas Nawaz
11-ARID-975
DVM 1st semester
ARID AGRICUTURE
UNIVERSITY,
RAWALPINDI

3. 1: PLANNING PRINCIPLE
Planning principles and objectives for any
poultry development include:
1. Minimal environmental (visual, odour, noise,
wastes) impact and minimal
impact on adjoining uses, with allowance for future
expansion of operations.
2. Must be consistent with relevant planning
principles and objectives articulated
in Local Council Development Plans.
3. Maximise bird welfare.
4. Minimise disease risk.

4. General
Poultry farms should not create any significant
adverse impact, including denudation, erosion,
pollution of the environment, nuisance, human
health risk,4 bird welfare problems or loss of visual
amenity. Poultry farms should be sited,
designed and managed to ensure that odour
emissions and noise are minimised
(see Section 8 for minimum suggested buffer
distances.)
All buildings and other ancillary structures should be
sited as unobtrusively as possible. Suitable trees
and shrubs should be planted and maintained
around
the sheds and other ancillary structures intended for
animal husbandry, to visually screen these activities
from adjoining roads and properties.

5. Wastes
All effluent and other wastes must be
properly managed and disposed of
without
adverse effects on public health and
the environment, including water
resources.
Solid or liquid wastes should not be
spread on the property within the
prescribed
distance of dwellings, watercourses
or roads (see Section 7.1 for buffer
distances for waste disposal).

6. Future
Expansion
Forward planning is an essential aspect of
poultry farm development. Feed
storage, drainage and effluent facilities all
need to be sited in an appropriate
manner. Experience has shown that poultry
farms often expand in size within a
few years. Therefore it is sensible to plan for
future expansion

7. Local Development Plan
Applications must be consistent with the
relevant planning principles and
objectives contained within the Development
Plan of the Local Council. Councils
should take account of potential urban
encroachment when granting construction
approval for the poultry farm, however the
prime reference will always be the
Council’s Development Plan.

8. Pests & Diseases
The poultry farm operation should not
cause a nuisance by the harbouring of
pests or diseases, for example
rodents.
Bird Welfare
All facilities should be
designed with consideration
for the welfare of the birds

9. 2: PLANNING APPROVA
PROCESS
Under current South Australian planning legislation (the
Development Act 1993)
the term "farming" does not include poultry farms. The Regulations
under this Act
include poultry farms under the definition of “intensive animal
keeping” (ie.
intensive animal keeping means the keeping or husbandry of animals
in a broiler
shed, chicken hatchery, feedlot, kennel, piggery, caged layer unit or
other like
circumstances, but does not include horse keeping).
Accordingly, poultry farms are a change of land use from general
farming. This
change of use requires planning approval from the relevant authority,
which is
generally the Local Council.

10. 3: DESCRIPTION
OF A
POULTRY to the
There are three distinct components
FARM (birds producing table eggs), broilers
modern poultry industry. These are
layers
(production of chicken for meat) and
breeder farms.
In general, thousands of purpose-bred chickens
are delivered to the farm within
hours of hatching. These birds are housed and
raised within large, naturally or
mechanically ventilated sheds, having some
degree of climate control. Food is
dispensed to the growing birds from bulk bins via
an automatic feeder. A
continuous supply of water is also made
available.

11. The shed layout depends
upon the end product and
is typically as follows;:
Breeder Sheds
Layer Sheds
Grower Sheds
Hatcheries

12. Breeder Sheds
These are the birds producing fertile eggs. They may
produce layer strains or
meat strains and the housing for both strains is
similar.
The birds are housed on the ground with deep litter,
or there may be partial or full
slats. The eggs are laid in nest boxes from which
they are collected frequently,
then stored for transport to the hatchery. Food
consumption is controlled to
prevent birds becoming overweight.
At the end of their productive life, the birds are
removed for processing, the used
poultry litter (consisting of a mixture of bedding
material and manure) is removed
and usually sold as fertiliser. The shed is then
cleaned and prepared for the next
flock.

13. Hatcheries
After collection, fertile eggs are taken to a
hatchery where they are artificially
incubated in machines which maintain the correct
temperature and humidity for
incubation to occur. Hatched chickens are usually
moved off the premises to the
brooding facilities within hours of hatch.
These guidelines are not designed to apply to
hatcheries, as their operations are
quite distinct from those of breeder, layer or
grower establishments.

14. Layer Sheds
Laying birds are generally housed in cages.
Droppings fall through the cages’
wire floor and may be caught on a belt which
takes them away, or onto the floor
from where they are periodically removed. Eggs
can either roll onto a conveyor
belt, or into a wire trough from which they can be
collected. Some layer sheds
may be similar to that described for breeder
sheds, with similar egg collection
systems.

15. Grower Sheds
Replacement pullet and meat chicken growing facilities
are similar, differing
mainly in size (some modern meat chicken sheds may
hold up to 50,000 birds)
and the lengths of time the birds are kept (perhaps 6-7
weeks for meat and 10-
16 weeks for layers).
Brooding is usually in part of the shed and as the birds
grow, they are given more
room. They are housed on the floor on litter.
While layer birds may have a restricted diet to prevent
them becoming
overweight, the meat chickens are fed ad libidum and
both have free access to
water.

16. 4: SITE
SELECTION AND
DEVELOPMENT
Objectives:
· To ensure that noise, odour, visual impact, dust and pests do
not cause unreasonable interference to the community.
· To minimise any adverse impact on adjoining land uses and
the natural environment of the area.
· To ensure that soil, surface and ground waters do not become
contaminated.
· To ensure effective operation of the poultry farm, including feed
and water supplies, pick up and delivery of birds, and avoidance
of waterlogging or flooding.

17. The site chosen therefore needs to take into account the
following factors:
- risk of groundwater pollution and prevention of degradation
of surface
water
- flooding - be above the level of flooding with average
recurrence interval of
100 years
- availability of suitable quality water
- road access for feed and livestock vehicles
- source of good quality rubble
- sufficient area for facilities
- manure and litter storage and disposal
- wind breaks
- dead bird disposal
- quarantine issues
- distance from existing or future residential development
- soil type
- proximity to processors
- proximity of feed mill
- availability of labour
- local topography
- local meteorology
- disposal of stormwater

18. Terrain layout

19. Terrain layout