Raising chickens is definitely a good source of income. Aside from the fact that you can benefit from selling your chickens once they reach a marketable age and size, you can also earn income from selling poultry products such as eggs to the public and chicks to other poultry raisers. In addition, maintaining and operating a poultry farm is relatively easy and fuss-free once you have everything set up and running.
But how do you set up a chicken farm when you do not have enough space to lay out your chicken coops and chicken houses? Especially for backyard chicken farmers, it is essential that your available space should be well thought-out and planned so you can maximize your poultry farm.
So how do set up your chickens’ living spaces given the limited space? The answer to space considerations is to go for chicken arks instead of chicken coops. Chicken arks work just like chicken coops by providing a space for the chickens to roam about and interact with other chickens, where they can eat and drink, and where they can rest and nest.
The advantage of chicken arks over chicken coops is that the former is portable. Typical chicken ark models have no floors, so it is easy to uninstall them and move them around, depending on the space limitations. A chicken ark is also typically smaller than a chicken coop, and is made of lighter materials. If your background is relatively secure from predators, then chicken runs can adequately keep your chickens safe and healthy.
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Chicken houses are not easy to build. If you are trying to put together any of these glorified chicken coops, you need to remember that the safety of your chickens is your major consideration.
First: safety should be your utmost concern. The objective for the exercise is to come up with a chicken house where your chickens can live safely, and protected against the elements and their natural predators. There are several ways to do this, one of which is to install the chicken house in such a way that it is facing the sun so that your chicken coop remains dry especially during the wet season. On humid days, the sun’s rays can also prevent dampness inside the chicken house. Remember that a damp chicken house can cause your chickens to become sick.
Choosing a spot for your chicken spot also requires selecting a high and dry place so that the water runs off from the chicken house during rains or heavy storms. This will also facilitate cleaning of the chicken house as you can easily hose down waste off and away from the chicken coop. During the cold months, it might also be useful to install an electric light as your heat source.
The chicken wire around your chicken house should be installed in such a way that it can stand attack or impact of natural predators. Aside from the construction concerns, the material that you use for your chicken coops should also be strong enough such that predators cannot chew into the chicken coop. Make sure, too, that the walls are buried deep into the ground to prevent burrowing predators such as rodents from digging a tunnel into the coop.
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So you have decided to raise chicks for a living. You can do this by either using a sitting hen or placing the eggs in a chicken incubator to hatch. If you want to try using a chicken incubator, the first thing that you need to decide on is what type of chicken incubator you want to use. There are two main types of incubators: the force-air and the still-air. Force-air incubators are installed with a fan and have a bigger capacity. They are generally fuss-free once they are set up. Still-air incubators, on the other hand, are smaller models. They have no fans attached to them, have a lower hatching capacity, and require management.
After you have decided on which chicken incubator to use, the next thing you need to learn is proper maintenance of the conditions inside the incubator. Maintenance includes keeping the temperature at 100 degrees F and 102 degrees F for force-air and still-air incubators, respectively. Be careful when checking the temperatures. Make sure to check at the height of the eggs and adjust accordingly.
Humidity is another incubation factor that you have to control. Keep humidity levels between 58 percent to 60 percent from the first day to the 18th day. Then raise it to 65 percent until the 21st day. This will keep the eggs from losing their moisture. You should also keep the ventilation within the chicken incubator at optimal level, making sure to slowly open the vents as soon as the chicks are starting to hatch.
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