Last week I spoke about the need to include support facilities when assessing a new poultry project. This week we look at how these facilities change the economics of your project, specifically as it relates to your total bird capacity.
Support costs don't rise in direct proportion to bird capacity. A project needs roads, generators, biosecurity facilities, staff accommodation, and other shared infrastructure, but the facilities built for one standard-size farm can often support several more poultry houses without much additional cost.
This means the initial house may carry most of the shared infrastructure cost, while later houses use a support system that's already in place. As capacity increases, that cost is spread across more birds and becomes a smaller percentage of the total investment. With that in mind, a larger capacity project can be viewed as a more efficient use of capital.
This is why comparing only the price of each poultry house gives you an incomplete picture. Two houses will cost more than one, of course, but adding the second house doesn't necessarily mean repeating the entire project investment. Much of the supporting infrastructure may already be available.
This isn't an argument that everyone needs to start large. Poultry is a capital-intensive business, and most people aren't able to build several houses at once. Starting with one building and developing the project in phases may be the only realistic approach.
The important decision happens when you acquire the land and plan the property. Even if you're only building one house today, the site should be able to support the additional houses and shared facilities you may need later. Your first building won't fully benefit from the efficiencies of scale because it still carries much of the initial support cost, but once that infrastructure is in place, expansion can focus more heavily on the poultry houses themselves.
So the goal isn't necessarily to build everything at once. The goal is to avoid designing a one-house project that can't grow efficiently. You can build one house at a time, but each phase should fit into a larger plan for the property.