The Building

Today I spent a bunch of time thinking out the project building in a little more detail. We had a budget done up almost a year ago, before I even knew about the project, for a building roughly 60 by 40 feet. Using that as a starting point I reshaped it to 120 by 30, added one interior wall and estimated the price at 1.5 times the original estimate. Prices have changed somewhat, but an initial estimate puts the building in the 9 to 10 thousand dollar range. Adding this to our electrical system and water we come up to about 15 thousand leaving us with plenty of room to finish it with fencing and inside equipment and remain under 20 thousand. Initially I had hoped to be closer to the 15 thousand mark, but that was before I really started getting into the numbers and details of the project.

Now imagine a building 110 feet long and 30 feet wide. On the end is a set of large double doors, or perhaps a sliding door or garage type door. When you enter it from that door you see a shelf running down the length of each side wall. The shelf is 18 inches high and 2 feet deep. At the back of each shelf is a row of nest boxes about a foot square, lining the entire wall. 100 nest boxes on each side for a total of 200 nests. In the middle of the open floor are 4 water lines of various heights and two feed lines spaced evenly between the side walls. When you walk to the far end you see a single door that passes into a room 30 feet wide and 10 feet long. Inside this room are two brood chambers, one on each side wall. These chambers are 10 feet wide by 3 feet deep with walls about 2 feet high. They are insulated on the sides and have an insulated roof that is hinged on the back wall. Inside is a brooder heater to one side and several water and feed dishes spread around. The 45 chicks that were recently moved here are about 3 weeks old and will stay here till they are 5 or 6 weeks old and ready to move out to the main area. They must be large enough to handle a cold Haitian night, about 70 degrees, and able to feed and drink with the big birds. Next to this secondary brood chamber, along the back wall, is a primary brood chamber. It is only half the size but built in the same fashion. Both chambers have LED lights to provide light as no sunlight is available here. The primary brooder will house the chicks from the time they are hatched until about 3 weeks old when they are moved to the secondary brood chamber. The incubation cycle of a chicken egg is exactly three weeks, so as each set of eggs is hatched, the chicks are moved along to the next stage until they are out in the main area with the big birds. The incubators are set on a shelf where they can be monitored daily until hatching day. Off to the side there is an area with 12 car batteries hooked up in parallel. These are charged by several solar panels on the roof or somewhere angled up and to the South. The batteries are connected in a manner such that they can be easily disconnected. Every other day or so 3 of the batteries are rotated out and replaced with fully charged ones. These 3 are taken back to the pastors house where electricity is available about 4-5 hours a day. They are put on chargers to be fully charged until they are taken back to the chicken farm. With enough solar panels and constant sunlight they will not be needed, but often they will be needed to make up for the lack of solar production. As a last resort a small standby generator is kept at the farm, but gas is costly and it is only used when absolutely necessary.

I hope you were able to envision this building as I was. There is a lot of details yet to work out before we can get an accurate cost to it, but it's starting to come together. Soon I'll sketch it out and Fred will begin to get a cost for it. Keep posted for more details.