Farm area development: yard, warehouses, work areas

The success and profitability of an agricultural livestock business depends on many factors. One of them is the organization of comfortable, safe, and efficient working conditions.

The following text talks about how to equip a farm plot - the article draws attention to the key principles of the relevant work and its most important aspects.

Zoning of the territory

This space should include four functional areas, including the following components:

• livestock - it is equipped with facilities for keeping livestock (horse stables, piggeries, cowsheds), as well as special areas for walking these animals and a veterinary care point;
• feed - these are warehouses, feed shops, granaries, silo trenches and towers;
• production and economic - buildings in the form of garages and hangars for agricultural machinery, workshops for its maintenance and repair, water pressure structures and manure storage facilities;
• administrative and household - it includes office space, a medical aid station, changing rooms, and a canteen for employees.

An important point is also the provision of convenient entrances to each of the zones. It is advisable to equip the territory near the warehouses and loading and unloading operations with rubber flooring. The portal of the domestic manufacturer Creative Play https://creativeplay.com.ua/gyma offers to buy high-quality rubber tiles at affordable prices. And on internal farm roads, the road surface should be solid - concrete or asphalt.

The organization of the livestock complex and, in particular, its zoning must comply with veterinary, sanitary and environmental standards.

Yard equipment

In addition to proper coverage of roads and production facilities and sites, which will ensure convenient movement of transport and other equipment and personnel, regardless of the complexity of weather conditions, the farm territory must be equipped with the following functional elements.

1. Lighting system. This network should cover all areas of the agricultural enterprise, from driveways to work areas. They should be well lit in the dark. A modern solution is to use lamps in the form of LED spotlights with motion sensors. These devices will allow you to economically spend electricity without reducing the level of security of the facility at night.
2. Greening. From the side of the location of the settlement or residential area, the farm should be separated by a strip of green plantings - trees or shrubs. The width of such a forest strip should be at least 100 meters. The task of appropriate greening is protection from odors and noise, as well as creating shade.
3. Biosafety. The territory must be equipped with a main entrance that meets sanitary standards. The requirement for its arrangement is the presence of a disinfection barrier in the form of a concrete bath with a disinfectant solution for the wheels of transport equipment. Taking into account the disinfection requirements, a pedestrian sanitary pass for employees must also be equipped. This zone must create conditions for disinfection of personnel's shoes and hands.
4. By connecting communications. This means electricity and water supply. Water connection points for washing production premises and technical equipment should be convenient.

Manure storage facilities must be located at a distance prescribed by veterinary standards from premises where animals are kept and people work. The farmyard is designed so that wastewater from this agricultural enterprise cannot enter open water bodies.

How to equip the feed area and outbuildings

A condition for convenient feed distribution is the location of the feed shop near the livestock premises. Straw and hay are stored in crates or compressed bales. It is advisable to use special hangars for storing these and other roughages.

Silo trenches, in which hay is also stored, are equipped in the form of concrete containers. To prevent them from flooding or submergence, these objects are located on elevations.

Granary premises must be dry and closed, inaccessible to rodent pests and moisture.

The requirements for manure storage facilities are their watertightness and their distance from water supply wells and feed mills. Manure collectors must be concreted.

The quarantine department should be the place to keep new animals brought in from other farms. It is better to locate the veterinary care point next to the livestock area.

It is also necessary to create proper conditions for the regular removal of feed residues and other waste from the farm.

The legislative document that regulates the main principles of arranging the territory of a livestock farm is the State Building Standards of Ukraine (SBN).