Appropriate and safe housing

Animal housing should aim to create an environment that offers protection from predators, heat, rain and theft, be easy to manage and have as much free movement as possible. For example, animals can spend the day freely feeding in an enclosed area and then be housed during the night. If livestock is partially kept in an animal house, this makes it easier for the farmer to monitor the amount of feed and water consumed by the animals, as well as to collect dung, droppings and urine. Part-housing also gives the opportunity to carry out health treatments such as de-worming and external parasite control and to closely observe the animals’ behaviour.

Appropriate housing on organic farms aims at ensuring that animals have:

Adequate space for the size and number of animals to allow for free movement, lying and resting. Animals need to express their natural behaviours, for example, pecking or digging in the ground, climbing or scratching.
Sufficient fresh air and natural daylight, which helps prevent breathing problems and spread of infections.
Protection against harsh weather conditions, for example, excessive sunlight, heat, rain and wind. Such unfavourable weather conditions facilitate the development and spread of infections and may stress the animals rendering them more susceptible to infections.
Natural bedding material where animals are kept clean by avoiding direct contact with the wet ground or floor. The bedding will also absorb urine and faecal material, making it easy to collect.
Permanent provision of clean water and routinely cleaned feeding troughs to provide clean feed.
Security against predators without compromising the ventilation requirements and free-range housing.
Protection from any spiky or dangerous elements to avoid injuries to the animals and the farmer.

For easy management, housing should allow for easy removal of bedding material and excrement as well as easy access to cleaning the walls and floor. This requirement strongly depends on the nature of the floor and walls, the space and the number of exits and entrances provided.

Farm visit for discussion on animal housing

Take the farmers to a farm where animal species of specific interest are kept. Inquire from the participants what they think about the housing conditions of the animals on that farm. Share and discuss observations around the house with respect to the recommendations given below and suggest appropriate recommendations for improvement.

Construction of animal housing

Animal houses should be constructed in a simple way using locally available materials as much as possible to save on costs.

The following examples provide some valuable information for specific livestock housing designs based on the species’ natural behaviours:

Poultry, especially chicken, enjoy perching at night and, therefore, perching rails should be provided for this purpose. Chickens enjoy playing in dust baths to clean their bodies. Dark, secluded nests should be provided for layers, as they prefer laying in such places. For flying exercises, the housing should have a provision to suspend green vegetables about 0.5 m off the ground. Poultry also like to scratch for ants and worms, as this is their natural way of looking for food. Thus they should be given access to open ground in proximity to the poultry house.
Pigs naturally prefer separate spaces for resting, feeding and for relieving themselves, thus their housing should provide such separate spaces. They also like to have access to a wet and muddy area for cooling their bodies, especially in hot environments. They furthermore enjoy brushing against the walls, so the wall should be stable and not too rough so as to cause bruising or other injuries. Pigs should be given natural materials to play with such as wood logs, twigs or straw.
Goats enjoy feeding on suspended forage, high enough so that they can attain an upright posture while feeding. They also like to climb, thus parts of their bedding can to be raised off the ground so they can use different layers. The social structure of goats is quite strict; therefore, they need different individual places and corners where low and high ranking animals can feed separately.
Cows are big animals, sometimes with big horns and enjoy lying down while chewing cud (ruminating). They, therefore, need enough space to stand, turn, go past each other and lie down. If they get fed in the cow shed/kraal, every animal needs to have enough space to feed without being disturbed. A gently sloping floor is necessary to allow easy drainage of large amounts of urine through a drainage channel to a paved drainage pit outside the cattle kraal.