Short answer: When a broiler flock falls behind the weight chart, the cause is almost always one of five things: feed the birds are not eating, water they cannot reach or do not drink, heat or wet litter in the house, disease hiding behind slow growth, or birds that started behind. The week the gap opened tells you which group to look at first. Work through the checks in order, change one thing at a time, and call your vet early if the flock is not recovering.
Key takeaways
- Find the week the gap opened. A gap from week two points to chicks, brooding and water. A gap from week four points to the feed phase, heat and disease.
- Count the feed the birds leave. Refused feed, spilled feed and damp bags look the same from the door, so measure them.
- Water is the cheapest cause and the one most often missed. A drinker that runs low at one in the afternoon costs weight every day it does.
- Disease can hide behind poor growth for a week before the birds look ill. Open a sick bird and call your vet early.
- Change one thing at a time. If you change the feed, the medicine and the house on the same day, you will never know what worked.
- After two weeks of sound management, a flock that is still far behind is a question about when to sell, not only about how to catch up.
Start with the week the gap opened
The size of the gap matters less than the week it started. A flock that is 15 per cent light at week six has a different story from one that was 15 per cent light at week two, even though both look the same on the day you weigh them. The table sorts the common causes by when the gap appears, so you know where to look first.
| When the gap opens | What it usually points to | Check first |
|---|---|---|
| Week one or two | Chick quality, brooder temperature, water in the first 48 hours | Batch record, brooder heat at chick height, whether chicks found water and feed on day one |
| Week three or four | Feed phase change, feeder space, early heat, gut disease such as coccidiosis | Feed phase on the bag, feeders per bird, droppings, and whether the birds are huddling |
| Week five or six | Heat load on the heavier birds, wet litter and ammonia, density, respiratory or gut disease | Afternoon behaviour, litter under the drinkers, the spread in weights, and the feed refused |
Once you have the week, the checks below will narrow the cause quickly. A gap that opened in week two and did not widen is often an early-life problem that will not be fixed by changing the feed now. A gap that opened in week four and keeps widening is a live problem, and it needs something changed this week.
The feed the birds are not eating
When a flock is not gaining, the first instinct is to blame the feed. Sometimes that is right. Often the feed is fine, and the birds are simply not eating it. A flock that refuses feed looks identical from the door to a flock that is eating well, because both are standing around the feeders.
Measure it for three days. Weigh or count the feed you put in each morning, then weigh what is left in the trough and on the floor the following morning. If the trough is still half full, the birds are not eating what you gave them. Check why. A dusty mash may be refused. Damp or mouldy feed may be refused. A feed phase that is too rich or too poor for the age of the birds may be refused. And a feeder that the small birds cannot reach will be left for the strong ones.
- Smell the feed. A musty or sour smell means the feed has spoiled, and it should not go back in the trough.
- Check the bag date and the store. Feed that sat against a damp wall through the rains will have changed.
- Check that the phase on the bag matches your plan for the week. A grower bag fed at week two is as wrong as a starter fed at week six.
- Look at the feed on the floor. Spilled feed under the feeder is a sign of an overfilled or badly set feeder, and it is feed you are paying for and the birds are not eating.
The broiler feeding schedule sets out the amounts and phases by week, so you can compare what you fed with what the flock needed.
Water: the cheapest cause, and the one most often missed
Birds that do not drink do not eat, and birds that drink from a dirty or dry drinker eat less than they should. Water is the cheapest thing to check and the most often skipped, because a drinker that looks full from the door can still be delivering very little to the birds at the far end of the line.
Walk the drinkers in the hottest hour. Check the flow at the last drinker on each line, count the drinkers against the birds at their current weight, and make sure nothing has fallen out of place. Nipple lines lose pressure over distance, and a line that was fine when the house was empty may be short once the birds are big. Bell drinkers that are set too high leave the small birds unable to reach them. Water that sits in a warm pipe tastes wrong to the birds, and they drink less of it.
Keep a simple water count, even if it is only the number of buckets refilled each day from the tank. A drop in water use is often the first sign of a problem, and it usually comes two or three days before the weigh-in shows anything. Our water management guide covers drinker numbers and the cleaning routine in detail.
Heat, wet litter and the air at bird height
A house that looks dry from the walkway can have wet litter where the birds drink, and that wet patch raises ammonia at the height where birds breathe. The birds respond by eating less and moving less, and the gain slows even though nothing else has changed. Put your hand in the litter under the drinkers and in the corners. If the litter is cakey, wet or smells sharp, the problem is in the house, not the feed.
Heat is the other common cause. Birds that spend the afternoon panting do not eat through it, and a week of afternoon heat can take a visible amount of gain out of a flock. Our heat stress guide covers the signs and the fixes, and the litter management guide covers how to keep the floor dry without overspending on bedding.
Disease hiding behind slow growth
Some diseases do not kill birds at first. They slow them down. A flock with a gut or respiratory problem can look nearly normal for a week, and the first clear sign may be a weight that refuses to climb. This is why a slow flock needs a vet’s eye, not only a farmer’s eye.
The signs we see most often are these. Birds that huddle, ruffle their feathers and stand apart from the group are often unwell. Droppings that are watery, unusually coloured or bloody need a vet quickly, because coccidiosis and other gut diseases can cause them. Birds that sneeze, cough, have swollen or watery eyes or breathe with effort may have a respiratory disease. Birds that are sleepy, reluctant to stand or stagger point toward a more serious problem. Poor growth with dull feathers can also come from worms.
Each batch from Halaal Farms is vaccinated at the hatchery against Marek’s disease, Newcastle disease, Gumboro, infectious bronchitis and coccidiosis, and it comes with a batch record. Give that record to your vet. A vet who knows what the chicks were vaccinated against and when is far more useful than one who has to guess. For the common diseases, our guides to coccidiosis, Gumboro and Newcastle disease explain what each one looks like on the farm.
Treatment is a vet’s decision. Do not pick a medicine from a neighbour’s advice, and do not guess the dose. If a bird is sick but still alive, open it or have it examined while it can still be helped, and keep a note of which birds and which bay you took it from.
Chick quality and the first weeks
Sometimes the flock was behind before it ever reached the house. Chicks that arrive light, uneven or weak will struggle to catch up, however good the feed. The problem shows in the first two weeks, and the cure is usually better brooding and water access rather than a change of ration in week five.
Check the arrival record against the first weigh-in. If the chicks were uniform on arrival and only fell behind in the brooder, look at the heat at chick height, the drinker and feeder access on day one, and whether the chicks spread out or crowded into one corner. Chicks that crowd are cold, and chicks that spread out and pant are too hot. Our guide to telling a healthy chick from a weak one sets out what to look for when the box is opened.
Stress: handling, noise, predators and the power cut
Stress cuts intake, and it does so quietly. A flock that is chased, handled roughly or frightened at night will eat less for a day or two, and every lost day is hard to get back at this stage of the grow-out.
Power cuts are the stress that many Ghanaian farms underrate. When the fans and water pumps stop, the house warms within the hour, the drinkers may run dry, and the birds stop eating while they wait for the power to come back. A farm with no backup can lose a day’s intake in an afternoon outage. Our lighting and electricity guide covers backup options and what a practical generator plan looks like. Predators and night-time noise also matter, so check the house is closed at night and that dogs and rats are kept out.
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A symptom table to work from
Use this table when the weigh-in disappoints and you want to narrow the cause. It does not replace a vet’s diagnosis, but it puts the right questions in the right order.
| What you see | Likely causes | First thing to check | When to call your vet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed left in the trough every morning | Spoiled feed, wrong phase, feeders too high or too low, sick birds not eating | Smell and bag date; feeder height; the birds’ droppings | If refusal continues for more than a day, or birds are sleepy |
| Water use falling for two or three days | Blocked nipples, low pressure at line ends, warm or dirty water | Flow at the last drinker; water temperature; drinker cleaning | If birds stop drinking, or show loose droppings or lethargy |
| Watery or bloody droppings | Coccidiosis or other gut disease, enteritis, wet litter | Litter under drinkers; a clear look at the droppings | Early, before the flock starts losing birds |
| Sneezing, coughing, swollen or watery eyes | Respiratory disease, ammonia, dust | Litter and air at bird height; ventilation at night | Early; respiratory disease can spread fast through a flock |
| Birds panting and crowding in the afternoon | Heat load, too little air movement, density | Curtains, fans, drinker flow at 1 p.m. | If deaths occur in the afternoon |
| Uneven flock, with a light tail | Feeder or drinker queue, mixed sexes, weak chicks from the start | Feeder and drinker count; the spread on the weigh-in sheet | Only if the light birds show disease signs |
| Sudden deaths with no other signs | Several causes, including heat, disease and handling | Time, bay and weight of each death; the house temperature that day | At once, and keep a dead bird cool for examination |
The question to ask at every row is simple: what has changed? A flock that was fine last week and is struggling this week has a cause that happened in between, and that cause is usually in the house, the water or the feed rather than in the genetics of the birds.
A seven-day plan to get the flock moving
- Day one: weigh 20 birds from four spots, write the average and the spread, and compare them with the chart for the week.
- Day one: walk the house at the hottest hour, count birds at the walls and in corners, and check the drinkers at the far end of each line.
- Day two: start measuring feed given and feed left each morning, and smell and check the bags in the store.
- Day two: check the litter under the drinkers and in the corners, and fix any leak you find.
- Day three: count the water used each day and compare it with the day before. Note any fall.
- Day three: open a sick or slow bird, if one is available, and call your vet with the batch record and your notes.
- Day four: make one change, the most likely cause from the table, and write it in the book with the date.
- Day five: weigh 20 more birds, using the same method, and compare the gain with the week before.
- Day six: if the gain has improved, keep the change. If not, return to the table and check the next cause.
- Day seven: review the week with your vet or with us. Decide whether the batch needs a change in the house, a change of plan, or an earlier sale.
The plan is slow on purpose. Farmers who change five things in a day usually fix none of them clearly, and they lose track of what helped.
When to stop chasing the chart and sell
There is a point where catching up costs more than the birds are worth. If the flock is still well behind after two weeks of sound management, with the water, feed, litter and heat checked and the vet’s advice followed, every extra week in the house is feed you may not get back. A bird that is light and sick at week seven is worth less at sale, and it will eat its way through the margin while you wait.
Work out the marginal cost before you decide. Take the feed the flock eats in the next week, and compare it with the extra weight the birds will gain and the price you will get for it. If the feed costs more than the gain is worth, sell. Our guide to when to sell broilers looks at weight, age and the market in more detail, and the feed conversion guide shows how to put a number on the cost of each extra week.
Questions farmers ask
Why are my broilers not gaining weight even though they are eating?
Eating is not the same as converting feed into weight. Birds can eat well and still gain slowly if they have a gut or respiratory disease, if the feed is the wrong phase or spoiled, or if they are too hot or stressed. Check the week the gap opened, the water, the litter and the health of the birds before you decide the feed is at fault.
How long does it take to fix a flock that is behind?
Some causes can be fixed in a few days, such as a blocked drinker or a feeder set too high. Others take longer, such as a disease that needs treatment and recovery, or a house that needs ventilation work. Expect to see the weigh-in improve within a week of a correct change, and do not judge a change in less than that.
Should I change the feed if my birds are behind?
Not first. Check the water, the litter, the heat and the health of the flock, and check the feed you already have for freshness and phase. Changing the feed on a guess can cause a dip in intake of its own. If the feed is the cause, a nutritionist or your feed supplier can review the phase and the protein with you.
Can I give antibiotics to speed up growth?
No. Medicines should be used on the advice of a vet who has seen the flock, the batch record and, where possible, the results of a post-mortem or a test. Do not use them as a growth booster, and do not share medicines between flocks or with neighbours.
What is the most common reason broilers fall behind in Ghana?
In our experience the most common causes are water that is short or dirty, feed that is spoiled or fed in the wrong phase, and heat or wet litter in the hottest weeks. Disease is also common, and it often shows up as slow growth before it shows as sickness. The table in this article is the order we would check things in.
How many birds should I weigh to find out if the flock is behind?
Weigh 20 birds from at least four spots in the house, for a flock of up to 2,000 birds. The average tells you where the flock is, and the spread tells you whether the problem is across the whole house or in one part of it. Use the same method each week so the numbers can be compared fairly.
Will my birds catch up if I wait?
Sometimes, if the cause was short-lived, such as a few hot days or a power cut. Often they do not, because the gap compounds as the birds get heavier and the feed bill keeps running. Do not wait to see. Make a change, weigh again within a week, and decide with the numbers in front of you.
