How to design an open-sided poultry house for Ghana: east-west orientation, width limits, roof height and overhang, dwarf wall, mesh, floor and curtains.
Halaal Farms Ghana team4 October 2026 · 13 min read
A bare metal roof sheet in the afternoon sun gets too hot to keep your hand on, and the birds underneath it cannot sweat. In Ghana a poultry house is mainly a device for getting rid of heat and moisture while keeping out rain, sun, thieves and wild birds. Most of what decides whether it does that job is fixed on the day the foundation is set out: which way the building faces, how wide it is, how high the roof sits and how far it overhangs. A feeder can be replaced next month. A house built too wide, with its long side facing the afternoon sun, stays that way for twenty years.
This guide deals with the open-sided, deep-litter house used on most Ghanaian farms: a low block wall, wire mesh above it up to the eaves, a wide roof and curtains that can be opened or closed. Picking the plot itself is a separate job, set out in our guide to choosing a site for your poultry farm, and cheaper ways of building the same shape are in building a low-cost poultry house with local materials.
A grown chicken is most comfortable at roughly 18 to 24°C. Afternoon temperatures across Ghana are well above that for most of the year, so no open house can make the air cool. What a house can do is stop adding heat, by shading the birds and the floor completely, and help the birds shed their own heat, by letting air move across them at bird height.
In the south the air is warm and humid all year, with a major rainy season from about April to July and a minor one around September to November. Birds cool themselves by panting, which works poorly in humid air, and storm rain travels sideways into an open house. In the north there is a single rainy season, roughly May to October, then a long dry season in which the harmattan brings dusty air from the north-east, cold nights and hot afternoons. A northern house needs the same shade and airflow as a southern one, plus better protection from night wind and dust.
Set the building out so the two short end walls face east and west, and the two long open sides face north and south. Ghana lies between about 5 and 11 degrees north of the equator, so the sun rises close to due east, passes nearly overhead and sets close to due west. Early and late in the day it is low, and low sun is the kind that gets in under a roof.
With an east-west building, that low sun meets the solid end walls. The midday sun, being almost overhead, lands on the roof, and the overhang shades the open sides. Turn the same house so that its long sides face east and west and the picture reverses. Morning sun shines deep across the floor from one side for several hours, and afternoon sun does the same from the other. The birds crowd away from the sunlit strip, so part of the floor you paid for goes unused in the hottest hours, and the litter and walls soak up heat that they give back well into the evening.
Sun decides the orientation and wind comes second. Over southern Ghana the wind blows from the south-west for most of the year, and the harmattan comes from the north-east. Both cross an east-west building at an angle, which is enough to ventilate it. If the shape of your plot forces a compromise, a turn of 15 to 20 degrees away from true east-west does little harm.
Build both end walls solid to the roof, with a vent high in each gable. A service room at the western end, holding the day's feed, a footbath and the boots that stay with the house, takes the afternoon sun in place of the birds.
Natural ventilation depends on wind entering one long side and leaving through the other, carrying heat, moisture and ammonia with it. The further air travels across the house, the more heat and moisture it collects and the slower it moves, so birds in the middle of a wide house live in the worst air. For that reason, guidance for hot climates keeps open-sided houses to about 9 or 10 metres wide. Twelve metres is the outer limit, and only on an exposed, breezy site with high eaves. If you need more capacity, add length or build a second house. Do not add width.
Length is limited by the plot and by management, not by ventilation. Leave land clear at one end so the house can be extended later, and divide a long house into pens with mesh partitions, not solid walls, so the wind still passes and the flock cannot drift to the breezier end and crowd there. How many birds a given floor will carry is a subject of its own, worked through in our stocking density guide.
A building casts a wind shadow several times its own height. Houses standing close together take each other's air and share dust and germs. Leave 15 metres or more between open-sided houses where the land allows, and do not go below about 10. Place houses end to end or staggered, so that one is not directly downwind of another.
The same applies to anything solid near the long sides. A block fence wall a few metres from the mesh, a container or a line of dense bush will kill the breeze at bird level. Keep the strips along both long sides open and in short grass, which stays cooler than bare laterite or concrete and gives rats and snakes no cover.
The roof is the biggest source of heat in an open house. Sun-heated sheets radiate heat downward onto the birds, and the closer the roof, the stronger the effect. Height also governs air: a taller opening lets in more wind and gives rising hot air somewhere to go.
For a house 9 to 10 m wide, set the eaves (the lower edge of the roof, measured from the floor) at 2.4 m or more, and at 2.7 to 3 m if the budget allows. Many older houses have eaves at head height or lower. They are cheaper to build and noticeably hotter inside.
A slope of about 20 to 25 degrees suits metal sheets. It sheds heavy rain quickly and leaves a pocket of space under the ridge where hot air can collect above the birds. On a 9 m span, that puts the ridge roughly 1.6 to 2.1 m higher than the eaves.
Hot air that rises to the ridge stays there unless it can leave. An open ridge, covered by a raised cap that overlaps the gap so rain cannot fall in, lets that air escape and pulls fresh air in through the sides even on still days.
The overhang is the cheapest shade and rain protection you will ever buy. Make it about one metre, measured horizontally out from the wall. In December the noon sun over Ghana stands roughly 55 to 61 degrees above the southern horizon, depending on how far north you are. At that angle a one-metre overhang shades about 1.5 to 1.8 m of the wall below it, which covers most or all of the mesh. The same metre keeps out rain that falls steeply. Rain driven sideways by a storm is the job of the curtains. An overhang much wider than about 1.2 m needs its own braces or posts, or the wind will lift it.
A bright or white-painted upper surface reflects far more sun than a dark, rusted one, so painting an old roof white is one of the few cheap improvements to an existing hot house. Do not fit clear or translucent sheets as skylights. They let in patches of direct sun, and the birds pile away from them. Near the coast, salt air shortens the life of galvanised sheets, nails and mesh, so allow for heavier material there.
Each long side is a low solid wall with wire mesh above it up to the eaves. The solid part is the dwarf wall, and its height is a trade-off. It has to hold the litter in, stop surface water, snakes and rats walking straight in, and give the curtain something to seal against. But every course of blocks is a band of airflow lost at exactly the height where the birds stand.
For grown birds in the humid south, two courses of sandcrete blocks (about 45 to 50 cm) is enough. Three courses (about 70 cm) is the usual maximum. It suits the north, where harmattan wind at chick level is a bigger risk, and any house used mainly for brooding. Go higher than that and the birds sit in still air behind a wall. Finish the top of the wall with a slope to the outside so that water runs off, dust does not collect and birds cannot perch there. Plaster the inside face smooth so it can be washed.
The mesh has three jobs: let air through, keep the birds in and keep everything else out. Welded mesh or strong woven wire with openings of about half an inch (12 mm) stops sparrows, weaver birds and adult rats. Light hexagonal chicken wire with holes of an inch or more keeps chickens in and little else out. Dogs tear it and wild birds walk through it, bringing feed losses and disease with them. Hold the mesh under timber battens fixed along its full length, so that nobody can pull it away at one corner.
A deep-litter house needs a floor that stays dry from below and can be washed and disinfected between batches. Rammed earth and laterite fail on both counts. Damp rises through them in the rains, rats burrow in from outside, and disease organisms survive in the soil from one flock to the next. If the budget forces a choice, spend on the floor before the walls.
A practical specification:
A floor like this can be scraped, washed and dried in a day or two at the end of each batch. The full routine is in our article on cleaning and disinfecting a poultry house between batches.
Every millimetre of rain on a square metre of roof is one litre of water. A house 9 m by 15 m with a one-metre overhang all round has a roof covering about 11 m by 17 m, or 187 square metres. A 20 mm storm, which is ordinary in the rainy season, sends about 3,700 litres off that roof, often in less than an hour. If that water lands at the foot of the dwarf wall, it splashes onto the curtains, soaks into the fill under the floor and stands in pools where flies breed.
Three measures deal with it. First, shape the ground so that it falls away from the building on every side, and on sloping land cut a drain on the uphill side to turn run-off away. Second, lay a concrete apron or a gravel strip 60 cm to 1 m wide under the drip line, with an open drain beyond it leading to lower ground. Third, consider gutters and a tank. Collected rain is useful for washing down. Walk round the building during the first heavy storm and note where water stands or runs towards the wall.
An open-sided house without curtains is half a building. Curtains are how you hold heat for chicks, block harmattan wind at night and stop storm rain blowing across the litter. Plan the fixing points when the posts go in.
How far to open them, hour by hour and by age of bird, is covered in our guide to ventilation in open-sided poultry houses.
As an example, take 1,000 broilers to be sold at a little over 2 kg. At about 10 birds per square metre, that flock needs roughly 100 square metres of pen. The table turns the rules above into one building.
| Element | Example dimension | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Orientation | Long axis east-west, service room at the west end | Low sun meets solid walls |
| Inside size | 9 m wide; 12 m of pen (108 m²) plus a 3 m service bay | Narrow enough for cross ventilation |
| Eave height | 2.7 m above the floor | Distance from the hot sheets, larger opening |
| Roof | About 22 degrees, open ridge with raised cap | Hot air collects high and leaves |
| Overhang | 1 m all round | Shade and rain protection for the mesh |
| Dwarf wall and mesh | Two block courses, then 12 mm welded mesh to the wall plate | Air at bird level, pests kept out |
| Floor | 10 cm slab, 30 cm above ground, fall of 1 cm per metre to the sides | Dry, washable, above flood water |
For layers on deep litter the same shell carries about half as many birds, because each hen needs about twice the floor. Halaal Farms Ghana sells chicks in boxes of 50, so a new house can be stocked in steps while you learn how it behaves in the heat. Before you pour concrete, put the building cost beside the returns you expect from each batch. Our poultry profit calculator lets you test the flock size with your own local prices.
A house is ready when the floor has cured and been washed, the mesh is tight, every curtain runs freely up and down, the drains have been through one storm and the litter is spread and dry. Only then set the date. Our chick brooding guide shows how to prepare one end of the new house to receive them.
When you order from Halaal Farms Ghana, the price, hatch date and delivery cost are confirmed before you pay, so the booking can follow your building schedule. We supply broiler day-old chicks and layer day-old chicks to all 16 regions. Advice is free before and after an order. If you are still at the drawing stage, send the inside measurements through the order form or call 024 915 1503, and we will tell you how many birds the house can reasonably carry.
Only if you are able to open up the long walls. A room with ordinary windows traps heat and ammonia however many windows it has. Cut the blockwork down to two or three courses on both long sides, fit wire mesh up to the roof, add curtains and check that the roof overhangs enough to keep rain off the new openings. If the walls cannot be opened, use the room as a store instead.
Yes, if the shape is right. Birds respond to shade, air movement and a dry floor, not to the price of the walls. A timber or bamboo frame with a concrete floor, a low solid wall, good mesh and a wide roof can perform as well as a block building. The weak points are usually termites, loose mesh and a floor that cannot be washed, so spend there first.
The shell is the same: narrow, east to west, high eaves, low wall, mesh and curtains. The differences are inside. Layers on deep litter need about twice the floor per bird, plus nest boxes and perches, and they stay for more than a year, so mesh, doors and floor must last. If you plan cages, fix the cage layout before deciding width, so walkways and rows fit.
Not usually. In an open-sided house, height and a reflective roof do most of the work, and they have no hidden spaces. A ceiling can cut the heat radiating down from the sheets, but the gap above it soon shelters rats, bats and wild birds and is hard to clean between flocks. Raise the eaves, open the ridge and paint the roof white before you think about a ceiling.
Written by the Halaal Farms Ghana team. We hatch and import day-old chicks at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and deliver to all 16 regions. This article is general guidance for farmers. For diagnosis and treatment of sick birds, speak to a vet or your district veterinary office.
Space allowances for broilers, layers, Sasso, cockerels, guinea fowl, turkeys and quail in open-sided houses, with the sums for turning your floor area into a chick order and adjusting it for the hot months.
A practical guide to air in naturally ventilated houses: how wind and rising heat move it, how to set curtains by age and time of day, how to judge ammonia without a meter, and where fans fit.
How each type of poultry feeder works, how many birds it really serves, how to set its height, and how to count and cost what your flock needs, from a backyard pen to several thousand birds.
