GRASS CUTTER HOUSING

Grass cutter housing comprised of a stable and cages/pens. stable is the

main building which houses the cages/pens. It is a normal building

constructed in such a way to allow enough light and ventilation (air).

The type of material for its construction depends on the capital available to the farmer/breeder. cement block, wood, mud, brick, bamboo etc are some of materials for construction grass cutter house

(stable).

Basically there are two rearing methods:

1.Rearing on the floor (floor hutch)

2.Rearing above the floor. (in meshed cages).

Floor hutch is the of rearing cage constructed with either cement block,

brick or mud on the floor. 

Meshed cage on the other hand is the type of rearing cage made from combination of wood and wired-mesh.

Both of them however comprised of two

compartments which permit easy movement of animal.

They can also be made into two three tiers

(layers) system in order to optimize space.

The hutches are placed within the building, and the dimension with other features can be length can be 2.0 m X 1.5 m width X height 0.75  meters.

COMPARTMENT:-this must be two compartment each of 1.0 meters X 1.5 meters X 0.75 meters,

it must have a small opening way of Cm X Cm and must be made at the bottom of the partitioning wall between both

compartments.

This allows for easy movement of

the grass cutters from one room to the

other.And the top must be covered with a wire mesh or bamboo with an opening (entrance of 30cm X 25cm).

A farmer can also rear a grasscutter in a well covered wood wire cage, the designs of cages for grasscutter are different with purposes.

The cages dimension and features are:length x width x height i.e 1.6 meters x 0.6 meters x 0.45meters, it can also be in these ranges 1.5 meters x 1.0 meters x 0.4 meters, and it must have two longitudinal side: lenght x width: 30 cm x 25 cm, you can see the image of the wood wire cage system for grass cutter housing (3 steps: upstair wood wire cage system.

The dimension of the standard individual cages are length x width x height: 0.5 m x 0.5 m x 0.4 m and the entrance must be: 18 cm x 18 cm which must be one on one side only. here is a sample picture of a standard cage housing system:-

A RETENTION CAGES:

i. Grasscutter above 5 kg: 38 cm x 14cm x 14 cm.

ii. Grasscutter between 1 and 3kg: 30 cm x 10 cm.

iii.Grasscutter between 3 and 5 kgs: 33cm x 13 cm x 13 cm.

In Hutches, 8 grasscutter are kept inside the house, in colony cages we can put between 18 to 24 grasscutters together and same also adult castrated males can be put in the colony cages, and they may be up to 12 per cage. Image of animal population for one cage floor weaners (between two to four month old).