Opening your own business: raising chickens, is it profitable or not? How to build your own chicken business? Profit from chicken farming

Breeding and raising laying hens is a stable and quite promising way to earn money. Almost anyone who owns a suburban area and has free time can start a chicken breeding business.

In our previous publication, we examined in detail the question of. In today's article, we will examine in detail all the nuances of breeding and raising chickens at home. Let's determine the profitability of this area of earnings and the payback of the agricultural business.

Chickens are unpretentious poultry to breed and keep. Even a person who is not particularly knowledgeable about poultry farming can start this business with virtually no risk.

Chicken farm business plan

To properly implement an idea, you need to draw up a detailed business plan. You can prepare the document yourself or entrust this important matter to experienced specialists.

Why do you need a business plan for raising chickens?

This document describes step by step all the nuances related to business development. First of all, it is necessary to determine the profitability of the idea. Profitability is the ratio of costs and expected profits. Having determined the indicators, you can draw conclusions about the profitability or futility of the project.

Main stages of a chicken farm business plan:

Selection and analysis of the profitability of a business idea;
Finding start-up capital for project implementation;
Business registration;
Financial expenses;
Chicken farm premises and equipment;
Detailed calculation of the costs of purchasing poultry, its maintenance and nutrition;
Sales market and business payback periods;
Calculation of estimated risks that may arise during the implementation of a business idea.

Video on the topic Video on the topic

Chicken farm registration

At the initial stage, it is not at all necessary to register your type of activity. Surely you are not completely confident in the success of your business. Therefore, it is better to start breeding and raising chickens for your own purposes, and if you are successful, you can try to sell your products on the local market.

In the future, when mass breeding chickens, you will need to register your type of activity in order to be able to supply products to stores, supermarkets, and restaurants.

Breeding chickens at home

As mentioned above, chickens are unpretentious poultry that are quite suitable for home breeding. Almost all rural residents breed this type of bird for their needs. But few people decide to raise chickens on a production scale. The thing is that there is a lot of competition from private poultry farms, whose products have flooded almost the entire market. It is quite difficult to compete with manufacturing giants, but thanks to the quality of the products, it is still possible to grab a part of the market and find a profitable distribution channel.

Chicken coop diagram

First of all, it's worth talking about some of the most commonly used methods for keeping poultry at home.

Keeping birds in cages. This method consists of equipping the chicken coop with racks for cages, equipping them with drinkers, feeders, and nests for hatching eggs. The big minus is the constant cleaning of the chicken coop. You will have to spend a lot of time to maintain cleanliness, otherwise the birds will get sick. In addition, the construction and arrangement of cells is quite a financially expensive undertaking.

Setting up a chicken coop

Regardless of the chosen method of keeping birds, setting up a chicken coop is a must.

You can rent a poultry house or build it yourself. This design is not complicated at all. You can build a chicken coop from slate, boards or gas silicate blocks. The last option is the most reliable and durable, although financially expensive.

Inside the chicken coop you should definitely equip a perch, that is, a pole suspended 50–100 cm from the ground.

Nests. The chicken coop must also be equipped with nests for hatching eggs. Make sure there are enough of them to accommodate several birds at the same time. Making nests is not difficult; they consist of a shelf covered with hay or straw.

It is advisable to make small windows in the chicken coop for ventilation. Artificial lighting should also be installed.

Purchasing young stock for a chicken farm

If you are planning to breed laying hens for eggs as a business, then you should purchase suitable breeds of birds for rearing.

To get started, you will only need to purchase a few dozen birds. You can buy young chicks or purchase an incubator for hatching eggs.

When purchasing birds, consider the area of the chicken coop. It is worth knowing that on an area of about 10 square meters. m., you can place no more than 20 chickens. There should also be one rooster for every 10 hens.

Choosing a chicken breed for breeding at home

Having decided on the direction, you can begin to choose the breed of chickens for breeding. Nowadays, quite a lot of breeds of laying hens have been developed.

The following breeds are considered the most adapted and highly productive:

Leghorn;
Kuchinsky Jubilee;
Loman Brown;
Pushkinskaya;

Naturally, the natural qualities of the breed alone are not enough; in order for the chicken to lay eggs well, it is necessary to provide it with the necessary care and nutrition.

Care and feeding of birds

A certain air temperature is required in the poultry house. Temperatures ranging from -2 to +28 degrees are considered comfortable for keeping birds.

In a business plan for raising laying hens, the cost of poultry feed should be taken into account. Chickens are unpretentious in food, but still their diet should be balanced and varied. The main products that should be present in the diet of chickens: grain, millet, feed, food waste, grass, young nettles, lettuce. In addition, you should not forget about vitamins; be sure to add eggshells, sand, and small shells to your food.

Buying bird feed is not a very financially expensive stage of a business plan for breeding laying hens for eggs, and this is quite a significant plus of this idea.

Chicken nutrition

Costs and profits

First of all, it’s worth talking about the costs of setting up a chicken farm.

Main costs:

Chicken coop equipment;
Purchase of young animals and an incubator for further breeding of chickens at home;
Feed costs.

Profit from business in breeding laying hens

Breeding and raising laying hens involves receiving the main profit from the sale of eggs. On average, a laying hen can lay about 200 eggs per year. The average price for a dozen domestic eggs on the market is about 50 rubles. On average, a small farm consists of 100–200 birds. Thus, a farm of 100 chickens will bring you about 20,000 eggs per year. On average, you sell them for 100,000 rubles. This is how much you will earn if you only sell eggs. But you can also start breeding broiler chickens as a business and make even greater profits just by breeding poultry at home.

Good afternoon We are glad to see you among the welcome guests and regular readers of the site “about hens and cockerels.” It’s no secret that chickens are the most favorite part of the farmyard for both amateur farmers and agricultural professionals. Today we will present to your attention chicken farming business plan and chickens.
Raising laying hens is perhaps the most profitable part of farming and is quite inexpensive. The implementation of a business plan is easily feasible not only for rural residents. But also city residents. By analyzing a business project for breeding birds, you can avoid various difficulties in advance and correctly calculate finances and opportunities.

As with any business you decide to start, it is important to be responsible at each stage of business development in order to get a good result. A business plan for breeding chickens includes compliance with the technical rules for keeping chickens, a constant change of livestock and well-organized markets for the sale of products will be the key to obtaining the first and steadily growing profit.

First of all, you need to purchase chickens and young laying hens and you should not skimp on this, as this is perhaps the most important part of your success. In order to purchase the first batch of chickens, you need to decide on the breed. You can rely on your knowledge and experience when choosing, but you should not neglect the recommendations of professionals in this matter.

For breeding on farms and poultry farms, types of chickens are used depending on their purpose:

decorative
meat
egg
meat and eggs

Following the logic, we understand that egg chickens are suitable for building a business selling chicken eggs, and meat and egg chickens will bring profit from both the sale of eggs and poultry meat. To reduce costs at the initial stage of building a business, you can buy grown-up laying hens at the age of about two weeks.

The chicks grow quickly and at five months they already produce their first eggs. There are breeds that lay eggs all year round, subject to the rules of maintenance and regulation of lighting and temperature.

Methods of keeping chickens

Based on the characteristics of chicken breeds, there are methods of keeping chickens or, as they are also called, a poultry house for laying hens.

floor method of maintenance (on permanent bedding and on mesh floors).
cellular method of maintenance (does not require bedding, easier observation, automation of the process).
aviary method of keeping (better for southern areas, chickens in the fresh air).
combined

What to look for when implementing a business plan for raising chickens
The correct approach when analyzing a business plan would be a detailed study of all possible risks and a calculation of the profitability of the enterprise. The production and sale of eggs, protein-dietary poultry meat and other parts of it are the fastest-paying areas.

Also, the number of heads in your yard and the conditions in which they are kept will affect the financial investment, the amount of necessary feed, vitamins and the percentage of death or sick individuals. This also needs to be taken into account when drawing up a business plan for raising chickens.

For the purchase of livestock, young animals 4-5 months from the moment of hatching are suitable, since they will produce the first eggs faster than newborns. Be sure to purchase poultry from trusted and reliable sellers, this will allow you to avoid problems with the quality and health of birds in the future.

Breeding chickens for beginners. Where to begin.

Data for meat production:

one chicken cycle (chicken is a carcass ready for slaughter) is approximately 120 days. We count how many cycles there are in a year.
receiving meat after half a year = 1.3kg, and after a year and a half = 1.7kg.
The time from the purchase of chickens to the carcass ready for slaughter is from six months to 16 months.
the percentage of poultry death and unsuitability for production is about 5-6%

Data for egg production:

Having decided to breed chickens and roosters, one of the questions that will arise sooner or later is whether to buy an incubator or not. Of course, you can buy young crusts as needed and start the cycle again. However, is it worth doing this if you can hatch chickens yourself, using an incubator, which you can either buy or rent? The decision here is yours.

If you decide to start raising chickens seriously and on a large scale, it is worth investing in the purchase of an industrial incubator, which, if necessary, can be powered from a generator (acquired over time). The advantages of such an incubator will be the ability to regulate the humidity and temperature inside and the automated movement of trays with eggs.

Organizational aspects in the implementation of a business plan for raising chickens

What points do you need to consider when developing a business plan? Below is what 100% needs to be taken into account. The only thing we won’t do is give specific figures for certain costs, since in different regions and at different times the prices for everything necessary will differ. Therefore, build your calculations based on specific data obtained in the process of searching for the necessary information.

Things to consider:

costs of renting the required space;
feed costs (per month, per year);
electricity payments;
purchase of chickens (young hens) and assistance from a veterinarian;
expenses for transportation, accounting, etc.

Preliminary calculations for the business plan “Chicken Breeding”

Before you run to open an individual entrepreneur or LLC, you need to contact professional farmers and a consulting agency to calculate possible risks and costs. This will give a complete picture of building a profitable and profitable business.

Farmers who have been breeding chickens for a long time are advised to start with no less than one hundred young birds, otherwise, ill-considered investments may not pay off.
Based on the experience of an average farm raising chickens, the minimum costs vary from 100,000 rubles. 100,000 is the minimum bet with a high payback ratio for the business, with a competent approach.

Sales of products from the poultry farm

Despite the fact that above we described the main points of building a chicken business, selling products from a chicken farm is the final and decisive moment for making a profit.
If the sales market is not streamlined, then even a highly organized farmstead will not be a source of income.

Markets for chicken products:

your retail outlets
food market
the shops
restaurants
canteens
sales intermediaries

Let's sum it up

Undoubtedly, a chicken farm, even a small one, is a good source of income if it is properly organized and invested. This niche is suitable for those who have a small start-up capital and a desire to make money from their business. Raising chickens and cockerels, although labor-intensive, is not difficult and anyone can do it, both in the city and in the countryside.

We sincerely believe that the information presented will help you get started and get a good result by starting to breed hens and chicks.

Good luck in your endeavors!

A beginner with a small starting capital should not compete with large poultry farms. You may choose to specialize in small volumes of organic chicken and eggs. This direction has excellent prospects. Interest in environmentally friendly products is growing, and this trend will progress in the coming years.

Study the characteristics of various breeds and choose the most promising one in terms of breeding chickens for meat, most likely broilers. Separately, it is worth looking for breeds of laying hens. Find out everything about poultry care, calculate the costs of keeping it before making the first profits and draw up a realistic business plan. Think in advance about who you can sell your products to. You can only rely on local agricultural markets at the initial stage.

Main risks

The main danger is exposure of chickens to diseases (bird flu, helminthiasis, pasteurellosis, pullorosis, coccidiosis). Insurance will help reduce risks; you can use one of the programs developed for farms. Purchasing chickens in specialized nurseries, using vitamins and vaccination will slightly increase the cost of chicken meat and eggs, but will allow you to avoid significant losses due to mass mortality of poultry on your farm.

The unpredictable behavior of grain prices seriously complicates the work. They make up the main part of the poultry diet. It is not difficult to minimize losses if you have your own plot and grow your own cereal crops.

Location

You can start a business even in your summer cottage. But if you plan to sell meat and eggs in wholesale quantities as an environmentally friendly product, you need to look for a place that meets the requirements of sanitary services.

Your site should be located away from industrial facilities and residential buildings. But for the convenience of transporting products to the city, it is advisable to look for a place a short distance from it and with convenient transport links.

The size of the chicken coop depends on the method of keeping the birds. The cellular method is not suitable for you, although it allows you to save on space. Achieving competitive advantages over large poultry farms due to the high nutritional properties of meat and eggs is possible only with floor housing. This is a chicken coop, the area of which is calculated based on the norm of 10 m² for 20 birds, with fenced areas for walking.

Availability of additional land for growing fodder is highly desirable. It is very expensive to purchase everything that a bird needs for normal development and weight gain.

Equipment

A chicken coop can be installed in any room, but it is important to consider the desired temperature conditions. It is within -2…+27°C. In summer, birds need to be able to hide in the shade. For the winter period - effective insulation.

To save money on heating, you can make a layer of insulation from straw, sawdust, dry leaves and pine needles, mixed with lime (in a ratio of 25 parts organic matter to 1 part lime). It is better not to concrete the floor, but to leave it earthen. As the temperature drops, it becomes covered with straw.

It is very important to equip the poultry house with effective ventilation. It is necessary to make windows on the south side and provide artificial lighting.

Shelves with nests can be made from ordinary wooden boxes. It is important to ensure the optimal number of nests. The perch is equipped at a height of 0.6-1 meter from the floor.

Stern

For chickens you need to buy special feed. It is needed in the first month of life of the chicks; crushed dandelion and nettle leaves, grated carrots and goat cheese should be added to the diet. From the second month you can switch to grains and bran, additives from potatoes and beets, carrots and pumpkins, and fresh herbs. Be sure to give your chickens vitamin supplements, eggshells, and small shells.

Feed costs depend on the number of birds. Calculations are based on the daily allowance for each breed. On average, with a mixed diet, a chicken eats about 35 kg of grain or feed per year. By drawing up a schedule for raising young animals and slaughtering, you can calculate the required amount of feed.

Personnel

A small farm of 500 birds can be managed by 2-3 people. This business is often organized as a family business. If you plan to grow crops for food yourself, you can hire seasonal workers to perform certain jobs.

Documents and licenses

The best choice of registration form for this business is a farm (peasant) enterprise. The registration process is simple, taxation is calculated at the minimum rate.

To sell products, it is necessary to obtain opinions and certificates from veterinary and environmental services, SES, and fire inspection. There may be differences depending on the region.

Profitability

A 3-month-old broiler chicken reaches a weight of 3 kg. The market value of domestic chicken meat is unstable. A lot depends on who your buyer is. If you sell carcasses in bulk, you should expect a price of 150 rubles per 1 kg. At retail prices rise to 250 rubles per 1 kg. The cost of keeping each chicken should not exceed 200 rubles. This way you can achieve normal profits.

The situation with the sale of eggs is as follows. If you have 50 laying hens in your house, you should count on 40 eggs per day. The average price of a dozen domestic eggs is about 130 rubles. You can earn about 150,000 rubles per month from selling them.

Under normal circumstances and proper organization of the farm, payback is achieved in 9-12 months. Breeding broilers for meat shows profitability in the range of 50-60%, laying hens - 45%.

Marketing

At the start, the main sales flows pass through the market in the nearest big city. If you have all the necessary certificates, you can offer yourself as a supplier to restaurants and chain stores that specialize in selling organic products.

It makes sense to place ads on the Internet on regional sites. Be sure to create a simple business card website with photographs of the farm and the conditions in which the chickens are kept, information about quality and prices. This increases confidence in your product and will work to popularize it.

You can also make money by selling chicken fluff. Litter is also of great value - it is one of the best fertilizers.

Summary

Breeding chickens can become a profitable business if you can reduce the cost of purchasing feed, ensure environmentally friendly products and use an active marketing policy.

Raising laying hens or broilers for money has long been considered a profitable activity. Poultry meat is popular among athletes, young parents and fans of a healthy lifestyle, and eggs have remained the most used food product for centuries. Is chicken farming profitable today as a business? Anyone who knows about the characteristics of poultry breeds and living conditions can start their own business in this area; have a starting amount and a clear understanding of business rules.

Where to start a chicken business

Like any business, chicken breeding has certain steps in its development. First of all, you should choose a breed and calculate profitability. Calculate the initial costs, equip the chicken coop and place the young animals in it. Then, ensure feeding of the livestock and decide on markets for the products.

Variety selection

All domestic chickens belong to one of five categories: meat, meat and egg, egg, fighting and decorative, or purebred. The easiest chickens to breed are egg-laying chickens. They get sick a little and eat almost everything. Meat breeds are picky eaters and prone to frequent illnesses, but are more financially profitable than egg breeds. Fighting chickens are produced by professional breeders; this species is the least common in mass breeding. Thoroughbreds are raised more for pleasure than for practical use.

Egg breeds

Chickens of egg breeds are picky to a minimum. Laying hens feel discomfort and begin to get sick at temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius and above 25. The remaining temperature range is recommended for keeping birds. In order for the livestock to breed properly, natural or artificial daylight hours of 12 hours are required. There should be a separate nest for three corydalis.

A flock of laying hens does not need a rooster. Surprisingly, if it is not there, the level of egg production only increases. Cockerels are kept in stock either out of tradition or in order to avoid purchasing hatching eggs for the appearance of chicks.

Laying hens are fed with special feed twice a day at the rate of 100 grams of grain per head with the addition of meat and bone and fish meal, greens in summer and dried grass in winter. Crushed shells, shell rock, and ash are used as an additive to the main feed. Every 10 centimeters of drinking bowl or feeder should be for one bird.

Buying 3-4 month old chickens is profitable from March to June. From July, chickens begin to lay eggs and give the first profit to the owner. Among more than 100 egg breeds, the most common in Russia are the Leghorn and the Russian White.

Meat types

Hybrid meat breeds, or broilers, require a special menu and consume more feed, but grow faster than other species. Broilers are considered the most profitable for meat sales.

Feeding here is more intensive than in the previous case. Chicks are ready to seriously approach the feeder up to eight times a day. It is this regime that ensures rapid growth of the livestock. They eat from 15 to 115 grams of food per day depending on their age.

Up to 35 heads can fit on one square meter when kept in cages. Daylight hours for such individuals can be either constant (24 hours a day) or interrupted every hour for a couple of hours. The latter approach brings a noticeable effect in weight gain.

Broiler chickens are purchased exclusively in winter, so the temperature regime is significantly different from that used in a laying hen flock. The first days the chickens bask in 35-degree heat, after a month the temperature drops to 22-25 degrees and then the chickens live at 19°C.

When purchasing broiler chickens, you should keep in mind that the survival rate of such breeds is not the highest. Day-old individuals have extremely low immunity, so they have little chance of surviving after moving. Stronger 10-day-old chicks are more profitable. You need to choose active and healthy-looking birds. The hybrids recognized by Russian poultry farmers are ROSS 301, 708, KOBB 500.

Pedigree chickens

The development of decorative breeds in our country is not on stream. More often than not, this activity has an aesthetic orientation. Some people breed loud roosters, others breed fluffy chickens. Even access to multimillion-dollar metropolitan areas does not guarantee high profits from the sale of eggs, chicks or adult birds.

Some of these breeds are still of practical value. Pavlovsk chickens lay eggs regularly, and their meat has a delicate taste. Chinese silk down is in constant demand among lovers of natural feather pillows. Others have nothing but beauty. An example of such a breed is the Phoenix.

Long-tailed cockerels cannot boast of body size, and hens lay 80-150 eggs weighing 45 grams annually during their heyday. Dwarf specimens produce no more than 60 eggs per year, each weighing less than 25 g.

In Russian birds, unlike Japanese birds, the tail does not grow longer than 90 cm. They do not lead a static lifestyle, but require more attention from the owner than broilers or laying hens. A perfectly clean chicken coop with heated floors, an equally clean walking area. Cages for keeping should be high and narrow, and this miracle is ready to walk only when accompanied by the owner, at least three times a day. The breeder's task is to protect the magnificent tail from damage. Overheating or freezing of the walls of the chicken coop will negatively affect the appearance of the scallop.

Feeding of the breed is standard, the same as for egg-laying chickens. Typically the livestock consists of a dozen hens and a rooster. Females lay their first eggs at 6 months, males are considered adults at 3 years. The eggs of the breed are hatched in an incubator: the parents are indifferent to their offspring. Chicken survival rate is 95%. In Russia today, in addition to phoenixes, they breed motley, puffy-legged bantams, paduans with a luxurious crest and mane, and the dwarf breed Seabright, as if painted with lace.

Cost-benefit analysis

When calculating profitability, we look at how much money is needed to create and maintain acceptable living conditions and what income is planned from sales. Here you need to take into account the level of competition and demand indicators in your region. The ratio of expenses (for registering a business, building a chicken coop, food supply, salaries for assistants) and sales indicators will show how financially sound the idea is.

Income

The average productivity of laying hens is an egg in a couple of days. The period of activity in this plan is six months. As a rule, the herd consists of at least three dozen specimens. At a price of 80 rubles, ten domestic eggs can bring in 3,600 rubles every month. For six months of active laying hens, you can actually get 21,600 rubles.

The broiler menu exceeds the diet of laying hens in volume and cost, and some of the hybrids invariably die, approximately 30% of the population. Such chickens are raised for up to 2 months, no longer than 80 days. A domestic broiler is bought for 300 rubles/kg, the weight of one carcass is approximately 2 kg. Thus, one carcass will cost 600 rubles, and a herd of 30 heads will bring 15,000 rubles in a couple of months. For six months the figure will be 45,000 rubles.

Decorative phoenix cockerels from households rarely appear on sale, costing about 1000 rubles. per individual. Poultry farm breeders offer eggs for an incubator for 300 rubles, two-week-old chickens for 400 rubles, and adult birds for 4,000 rubles. Taking into account the fact that phoenixes bring 80-150 eggs a year (half are spent on replenishing their own livestock), you can earn 12,000 rubles from them in six months. An adult bird enters its prime in the third year of life.

Poultry farming should be officially registered. Business registration and choice of form of activity, OKVED codes; the presence of a certificate confirming the quality of eggs or meat, permission to sell the latter - all this is easier to obtain with the help of a professional lawyer.

Expenses

The presented table of expenses has statistical averages. Thus, you can purchase young animals in the form of eggs for an incubator (50 rubles/piece), week-old chickens (70 rubles/piece), one and a half months old (50 rubles). You can assemble a bird house with your own hands or buy a ready-made poultry house. Birds can be raised in boxes or commercial cages.

Table of starting costs for raising chickens (30 heads)

Consumption category	Amount, rub.
Chicken coop	50 000
Chickens 1.5 months old, 30 pcs.	4500
Cages (3 sections) made of galvanized steel with a tray, feeder, drinking bowl	20 000
Other equipment (incubator, cleaning equipment, heaters, etc.)	15 000
Other expenses (starter feeding, vaccinations, etc.)	10 000
Total	99 500

The poultry farming business breaks even in about eight months. In addition to the actual eggs or meat, you can sell droppings and fluff.

Organization of conditions of detention

When the decision to create a business has been made, the conditions for keeping the livestock should be organized. It’s good if you already have a building for birds or you can use some of the equipment left over from home chicken breeding. Standard living conditions include a poultry house and equipment for it, as well as a walking area.

Place for poultry house and chicken run

The poultry house should be located in a well-ventilated place, accessible to direct sunlight. The space is organized in such a way that the walls maintain a temperature of 0 to 24 degrees for laying hens and most ornamental breeds and a range of 19-35 degrees for broilers. It is also important to install a high-quality ventilation system, otherwise part of the capital will be spent on unforeseen treatment of birds and constant disinfection of the premises. The chicken coop must be connected to electricity, otherwise issues of lighting and heating in winter will result in a decrease or even loss of livestock.

A standard chicken coop is not suitable for use if it is planned to contain laying hens and broilers at the same time. In this case, it is appropriate to make two entrances. One at the bottom so that the broilers could make their way onto the warm floor, the other higher up, where the laying hens could climb the stairs and take up roosts without trampling the broilers.

If the choice is made of laying hens, the owner should take care of the area for the hens to walk. Usually this place is adjacent to the chicken coop and communicates with it. Along the perimeter, the ground is fenced with a chain-link mesh with a height of one and a half meters and higher. Additional feeders and drinking bowls are placed on the territory. By the way, some poultry farmers also release broilers for walking. True, such outings are not often allowed for obese birds.

Mandatory equipment for a chicken coop

Breeding birds will be impossible if equipment for the poultry house is not prepared in advance. The capacity, length or quantity of each of them will depend on the number of corydalis:

feeder The length is determined by the number of livestock: 10 cm is measured for each head;
drinking bowl The length is calculated according to the same principle, installation - in the most accessible place;
perch. The equipment is intended for egg breeds, placed at a height of 0.8 m from the floor surface;
floor containers for dietary supplements. Ash, shell rock, pebbles or chalk are poured into basins or cups;
cages for meat breeds and hybrids;
nests for laying hens;
cleaning equipment.

The presence of a feeder, drinking bowl, and equipment allows you to start implementing your business without being distracted by obvious purchases. The rest of the equipment can be purchased as needed.

Optional equipment

As a rule, the first purchase of young animals allows you to do without an incubator. But in order for fragile chickens to survive to adulthood, it is better to purchase a brooder. This equipment will replace a hen for chicks.

Brooder

The device protects birds from drafts on all sides; cracks in special places provide a constant flow of fresh air. The floor in such a cabinet is perforated so that droppings do not linger inside. The front wall is covered with a mesh.

The brooder contains containers for feed and water, lighting and heating devices. Moreover, the latter are located so that the chicks are not able to reach them. When purchasing a brooder, it is important to ensure that the floor is not slippery and that the device is easy to disinfect.

The price of brooders is from 6,000 to 20,000 rubles. The cost is determined by capacity and technical characteristics. By the way, you can build the equipment yourself. To do this you will need a block, a couple of fiberboard sheets, a galvanized mesh, a plastic tray, a lamp, a thermostat and foil.

The construction of a brooder drinker must be carefully thought out. Vacuum devices or ordinary dishes with cups are not suitable here: the chicks will simply choke in them. Preference should be given to nipple devices with a drip catcher. It will protect the birds from death and infections.

Incubator

Unlike laying hens, broilers cannot be raised without periodic purchases of eggs from poultry farms. They will have to be hatched using an incubator. Devices of different prices are equipped with different capabilities. Some can turn eggs on their own, while others cannot do without human help. Incubators can hold different numbers of eggs. Some models come with a fan, some without.

The price of the incubator increases if it includes a battery. For a small population, an incubator with a fan, the ability to turn the contents, with additional food, for 35-70 eggs is suitable.

The advantage of this equipment is ease of maintenance, the possibility of direct control over automatic “hatching”, and independent setting of ventilation parameters and humidity levels. The incubator also has disadvantages. Its use in chicken coops in Russian regions during the autumn-winter season is problematic. The equipment operates at temperatures above 15 degrees. In addition, all eggs must be loaded into the incubator at the same time.

Prices for automatic hatching devices range from one and a half to 10,000 rubles. You can make such equipment with your own hands from a wooden box, a thermometer, a tray of water and incandescent lamps.

Purchase of young animals

When the room for birds is ready, it’s time to think about buying its residents. If the choice is broilers, you should buy day-old birds; laying hens are needed that are already strong, about a month old. Can they be identified visually? The babies, who live no more than 24 hours, are fluffy, without a single feather. Month-old chicks acquire feathers on their tail, back and neck.

Where to buy young stock is no less important than choosing the age of the animals. At poultry markets, sellers can only give their word of honor as a guarantee. As a result, representatives of the most unexpected breeds with problematic levels of health can live in the chicken coop. There is a risk here not only of making a mistake with meat or eggs, but also of bringing the virus into the domestic herd.

The poultry farm is also not a priority when purchasing chickens. As a rule, culled individuals are sent to such enterprises for sale. The best option is industrial hatcheries or large poultry farms with an impeccable reputation.

When it comes to purchasing hatching eggs, there are a few rules to remember.

A fresh egg's shell does not shine, it is smooth and without damage.
Hatching eggs should not be washed under water.
Freshly purchased eggs should not be exposed to direct sunlight, dust or raindrops.
The purchase should be protected from too low and unreasonably high temperatures. At levels below 8 and above 27 degrees, the development of the embryo may slow down or go the wrong way.
When buying eggs, take them with your fingers by the opposite ends so as not to erase the protective film.

When transporting chickens and hatching eggs, there are clear restrictions: on the ground you can drive no faster than 30 kilometers per hour, on asphalt you can not exceed 60 kilometers per hour. Shaking, pushing and shaking the purchase on the way to the chicken coop is not worth it if you want to keep the flock intact.

Chicken feed

Feeding chickens is an indicator that can radically affect the result of breeding. Compound feed can be purchased in advance from wholesalers. Among grains, wheat occupies the first place in feeding. Barley is recommended for broilers: this grain gives juiciness to the meat. Laying hens can be pampered with sunflower seeds: they tone up the birds and increase egg production. Oats and buckwheat are difficult for birds to digest, so their diet should contain no more than 10-20%.

A fifth of the daily feeding of chickens should be fresh herbs (hay), root vegetables and vegetables. Sources of vitamins can be weeds with roots, which are sent to the paddock immediately after weeding, clover, nettles, and pea greens. Potatoes, carrots, pumpkin are chopped or added to the mash in boiled form. Cabbage can be hung whole in the coop, especially in winter.

Necessary amino acids are contained in cottage cheese, kefir, and whey. It is also useful for chickens to add fish and meat and bone meal, waste from meat dishes, worms and chafers to their diet. In addition to the food itself, there should always be water and mineral supplements in the chicken coop: ash, shell rock, river pebbles.

Product sales locations

What is attractive about raising chickens as a business? The result of labor is in demand in markets: the products are good when fresh. Meat and eggs can be donated to grocery stores, catering establishments, and agricultural markets. In the end, buyers themselves will appear at the doorstep of the subsidiary farm: word of mouth has not been canceled.

If we are talking about independent sales, you will need a medical book for the seller and documents for meat from a veterinarian or from a laboratory where eggs are checked. Plus a paper confirming the existence of a farm and a registered lease of a retail outlet.

Conclusion

Breeding chickens as a business has many advantages. No special technical or complex animal husbandry knowledge is required. Payback comes within four months after the start. Profit comes not only from eggs or meat, but also from litter, feathers, and even sales of individuals for aesthetic pleasure (this applies to decorative breeds). The costs are not daunting; pre-launch preparation is minimal.

All that is required from the breeder is attentiveness to the wards, scrupulous adherence to the bird’s life regime, a quick response to changes in sales markets and, most importantly, the ability to receive positive emotions from communicating with birds. This is a simple formula for making a profit from work that brings pleasure.

The demand for inexpensive food products is always high. Therefore, your own small chicken farm can become a very profitable business. After all, from this bird they get two popular products on the market: eggs and tasty dietary meat.

Where to begin?

In addition to concentrates, chickens must receive green and succulent feed. These can be cabbage and beet leaves, carrot tops, quinoa, and nettles. You also need to give grated carrots, beets, apples, zucchini, etc.

In addition, care should be taken to ensure that chickens receive a sufficient amount of beneficial microelements. For laying hens, for example, calcium is very important. Its deficiency in feed can be compensated for with chalk or grated shell rock. Add a little salt to the chickens' feed. Various vitamin supplements are also used. The latter are usually bought ready-made in bags. There are additives on sale today that are designed specifically for laying hens, broilers and young animals.

Where to sell products

Breeding chickens for beginning farmers is therefore a good business. Its advantages, among other things, include the ease of implementation of the finished product. Eggs and meat can be donated to shops, cafes, canteens or even restaurants. Some farmers open their own retail outlets. But in this case, of course, you will have to pay additional rent. If the livestock is not too large, you can also sell meat and eggs simply on the market.

Conclusion

As you can see, a mini chicken farm can become a truly profitable business. Such a business does not require large initial investments. Actually, caring for the bird itself is not particularly difficult. However, of course, the technology for raising chickens must not be violated under any circumstances. The lack of necessary equipment in the barn or the use of low-quality feed will most likely cause loss of hair, decreased productivity, and, consequently, lack of profit.