Livestock Housing, Equipment and Farm Management
Space and layout standards
- Dairy cow, loose housing: about 40–50 sq ft covered plus 80–100 sq ft open per animal; conventional stall about 40 sq ft.
- Calf ~20 sq ft; sheep and goat 10–12 sq ft; pig fattener 8–10 sq ft; poultry deep litter ~1 sq ft per bird.
- Floor slope 1 in 40 to 1 in 60 towards the gutter; manger about 2.5 ft wide; ridge ventilation along the ridge.
- Site: elevated, well drained, near road and water but away from dwellings; long axis east–west to reduce sun on the long wall.
Equipment and records
Chaff cutter, milking machine, water trough, weighing balance, ear tags, dehorner, castrator, silo, standby generator. Registers for pedigree, breeding, health, milk yield and finance are the basis of culling and of any loan file.
Economics
Separate fixed cost (building, equipment, depreciation) from variable cost (feed, labour, medicine). Feed alone is 60–70% of milk cost, so feed efficiency decides profit.
Worked example
20 crossbred cows: covered 20 × 50 = 1000 sq ft, open 20 × 90 = 1800 sq ft, plus calf pens and a 3 ft gutter. If a cow yields 12 litres a day and total cost is Rs 300 for that cow-day, cost per litre = 300/12 = Rs 25; at Rs 32 the margin is Rs 7 per litre.
Traps
Do not confuse covered space with open space; slope drains towards the gutter, never away from it; pig and poultry space norms are much smaller than dairy norms and are frequently swapped in options; depreciation is a fixed cost, not a variable one.