FAQ - How to Start Raising Chickens / Poultry?

No legal problem, but rather (major) technical and economic constraints:
· Only traditional breeds are possible, which severely limits laying performance
· Flocks must be managed in a single group (one group of animals, born at the same time, for each building), requiring a dedicated breeding flock large enough to produce enough chicks to fill a building all at once. This is expensive and time-consuming!
· Rearing pullets is frankly technical: all the breeders we know, who underwent training on the subject for their own small-scale farming, ultimately decided to give up.
· Vaccinations are not mandatory but highly recommended. They are only available in large packaging (1000 doses) and require specific skills and equipment (nebulizer, syringes, etc.). Discussions have been ongoing for several years to request packaging adapted for small-scale farming, but to our knowledge, this has not yet materialized.

An intermediate option: some hatcheries (e.g., Hubert hatchery in Calvados) offer 1-day-old chicks from commercial crosses (expect to pay ~€1 to €1.5 excl. tax per chick). This does not eliminate the problem of vaccines and the difficulty of pullet rearing, but at least you get good genetics for a limited cost.

Cerfa 13984*04 (handling and sale of animal products) AND Cerfa 15296 (which allows for the allocation of a producer code for egg marking)

Yes, a SIRET number is mandatory from the first egg sold.
And agricultural products must be sold through an agricultural business because they generate agricultural profit (BA), which cannot be declared through a non-agricultural business.

Movement is necessary if you want to highlight the quality of pasture-raised eggs. Therefore, you can adjust your frequency based on the grass cover of your plot. Too low a frequency will lead to negative segregation of certain grasses that your chickens will not eat, and also significant trampling, which will be detrimental during wet periods. However, once a month is always better than nothing for renewing your pasture.
This is the huge advantage of mobile poultry houses!

If you have a well-designed poultry house with good feed and a suitable breed of hens, with hens at peak laying between 4 and 18 months, you can aim for an 85% laying rate.
We have feedback from breeders at Cabi who achieve over 90% or even 95% in mobile poultry houses. But if we conservatively assume 80%, to get 2000 eggs per week, that means 285 eggs/day. You would need 357 hens.

No, not necessarily. However, provide heating for the first 2-3 weeks, especially if starting in winter!

Either keep the hens inside the building, or have a mobile aviary attached to the poultry house. We have helped some breeders facing this, and it is much better for the hens: less pecking and less stress, thus better maintenance of the laying rate.

It depends on your objectives, your equipment, and what grows well in your area.
If you want to maximize nutritional value, a mixture dominated by legumes, chicory, and plantain. A grass-dominated mixture will be easier to manage and more resistant to poultry.
Avoid brassicas and grain legumes (faba beans, peas, lupins…) often found in cover crop mixtures, as they are toxic to poultry!

Not excessively. You need to move slowly to avoid jolts, and also limit the swinging of suspended equipment.
For laying hens, if you move the building with the hens inside, prefer moving in the evening rather than in the morning, to avoid disturbing them during laying.
In any case, the benefits of an easily movable building far outweigh this.

Roughly, 1g of N, 1g of K2O, and 1g of P2O5.

For more precision, see pages 31 to 34 of this CORPEN Brochure. The nitrogen content is higher there, which is normal! There are about 50% losses due to volatilization.
The losses are explained later in the document.

Document on “Practices in Pastures and Forages in Organic Laying Hen Farms in Pays de la Loire“

Yes, the INUAV is mandatory for each breeding unit (building).
Apply to the DDPP of your department.

Refer to Article 16 of the law on biosecurity measures applicable by operators and professionals linked to animals in establishments holding poultry or captive birds as part of the prevention of animal diseases transmissible to animals or humans

No, not necessary.