Overview & Core Concepts
This step covers the second building block: Production System / Intensity — how birds are housed, confined, and protected from environmental heat and diseases.
Intensity Categories:
- Free-Range & Backyard Systems: Birds roam outdoors during the day with basic night shelter. Features low construction costs but higher exposure to weather, predators, and outside diseases.
- Semi-Intensive Systems: Birds have access to a modest outdoor run alongside permanent indoor shelter, balancing natural foraging with partial biosecurity.
- Intensive Systems (Open-Sided Sheds): Birds are kept 100% indoors in naturally ventilated open-sided sheds. Uses wire mesh walls, side curtains, and roof overhangs to balance airflow, sun shading, and disease protection.
- Intensive Systems (Environmentally Controlled - EC Sheds): Birds are housed in fully closed, insulated sheds using exhaust fans, cooling pads, and automated climate controllers to maintain target temperature, humidity, and air quality regardless of outside weather.
Higher intensity housing generally offers greater control over bird growth, feed efficiency, and biosecurity, but requires higher shed construction costs and reliable electrical power.
Why This Matters
Confusing housing intensity with business model leads to costly design errors. Building an open shed when an integrator requires an EC shed, or building an EC shed without reliable power backup, can lead to severe operational risks.