Planning for Easter Poultry Demand in Ghana

Easter is a long weekend, so the sale is a long weekend too

Most of the money from an Easter flock moves in about four days. The buyers who talk to us in the weeks before the holiday usually want birds for a Good Friday lunch, a Sunday gathering at church or at home, or a family visit that runs through the Monday. The sale does not spread across a month the way Christmas does. It arrives in one short burst, and the birds have to be in the buyer's hands inside that burst.

That changes the job. With Christmas you can often sell in waves, with a first buyer in early December and a second in the last week. Easter gives you one wave with a hard front edge. If the birds are a week late, the holiday has already gone. If they are a week early, they are heavy and eating feed on your account for seven days before anyone pays.

Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in Ghana, so the four-day window is also a stretch when banks shut, drivers are harder to book and some shops close early. Those days catch out more farmers than the birds do, and we come back to them below.

Pick the Easter date first, then work back from the Thursday

Western Easter Sunday falls on a different date every year, somewhere between 22 March and 25 April. Do not carry last year's date into this year's plan. The next one is Easter Sunday on 28 March 2027, which makes Good Friday 26 March and Easter Monday 29 March.

For a Good Friday sale we aim for the Thursday before, which in 2027 is 25 March. Many buyers want birds collected that Thursday, because it gives them Friday to chill and cook. Some want them on the Wednesday. Ask which day, in writing, and set the chick date from that answer, not from the holiday itself.

Settle the date in January rather than February. Chick supply tightens in the busy months, so a late order can mean a later hatch date than you wanted, and a later hatch date means a batch that finishes on the wrong side of the holiday. We would rather you know your Easter date while the hatchery still has room to plan with you.

What the Easter table asks for, and which birds to plan

Easter demand is mostly chicken and eggs. Broilers are the core, because a whole chicken feeds a family table and a chop bar can sell portions the same day. Table eggs sell well in the days before the holiday, when households and bakers buy for cooking. Turkey is a different market. Its peak is Christmas, and a Ghanaian turkey buyer rarely asks in March for an April bird. Unless a buyer has asked for turkeys in writing, do not place poults for Easter.

Which broiler you choose changes the plan. A fast-growing broiler reaches a typical sale weight in about six to seven weeks, so one batch can cover the Easter window with time to spare. Slower-growing birds, including Sasso and other local-type strains, take much longer, often a few months, and the weight a buyer wants may need a longer runway than the Easter date allows. Work out the strain's own growth curve before you commit.

Use this table to open the conversation with each buyer:

Sasso and the other slower strains are on our Sasso page, and the fast broilers are on the broiler page. If your Easter buyers want eggs, the layer chicks page sets out what a laying flock needs and when.

Counting back to the chick day, with dates for 2027

Here is the 2027 plan written out step by step, so you can see the shape of it. The steps are the same every year. Only the dates move.

1. Early January. Confirm the number of birds, the weight band and the collection day with each buyer, in writing.
2. Late January. Clean and dry the house, test the brooder, and place the chick order with the date you need the boxes.
3. Thursday 4 February. Chicks arrive. The first 48 hours decide how even the batch will be.
4. Late February. Check the first weight sample and confirm the grower feed is in the store.
5. Early March. Move to the finisher feed on the schedule your batch record sets, and weigh 30 birds from three spots in the house.
6. Monday 22 March. Confirm each buyer's weight band and collection day, and book transport if you are not collecting.
7. Wednesday 24 March. Weigh again, decide which birds go on which day, and withdraw feed for the time your processor asks.
8. Thursday 25 March. Sell and collect. Keep a sample back for the buyer who wants a different weight.

Notice that the chicks arrive seven weeks before the sale, not six. A six-week count leaves no room for a slow batch, and a slow batch is the usual reason an Easter sale gets split. Build the seven weeks in, then use the weight samples to decide whether a few birds can go early.

The last ten days decide the weight band

Most batches look fine until the final fortnight. Then a few birds lag, the feed bill rises and the weight band starts to slip. The usual causes are a hot spell, a feed change made too late, or a house where the drinkers were not checked every day. March is often one of the hottest stretches before the rains in southern Ghana, so a batch that is finishing for the Easter date is exposed to heat at exactly the time it needs to put on weight.

Weigh a sample every three days from the second week of March. Take 30 birds, not five, and pick them from the front, the middle and the back of the house. Average the numbers, then look at the spread. A flock that averages on target but has a wide spread will not sell cleanly, because the buyer's weight band is a band, not an average.

When the spread is wide, sell in two lots. The heavier birds go on the first day, and the lighter group goes a day or two later, or to a buyer who wants smaller birds. Do not starve the lighter group to make the numbers look better. A bird that has stopped eating for a day loses more weight than you gain by holding it back.

Our weight chart gives a rough curve to compare your samples against. Treat it as a guide, because your strain, feed and house will shift the numbers. Your own batch record is the better reference, which is why we ask farmers to keep one from the first day the chicks arrive.

Good Friday and Easter Monday shut more than the shops

Banks close on public holidays, so a transfer you assumed would clear on the Friday may not reach you until the next working day. Mobile money usually keeps working, so agree that method with each buyer before the birds are ready. Do not leave the question of payment to the morning of the sale.

Transport is the second problem. Drivers who normally take a delivery on a Friday may want a higher fare or may not be available at all. Book the vehicle a week ahead, confirm the pick-up time on the Wednesday, and agree who pays for a wait. If the buyer is collecting, tell them the farm's gate hours for the holiday. A farm that is shut when the buyer arrives is a bad start to any relationship.

The third problem is the vet. Many clinics and private vets run reduced hours over the holiday weekend. If a bird starts to show breathing trouble on the Wednesday, the phone call should be made that day, not on Good Friday when nobody answers. Write the number of your district vet and a second contact on the farm noticeboard as well as in your phone.

Finally, the roads are busy. Many families travel for the holiday, so the bus stations and the main routes into the cities slow down on the Thursday and Friday. Collect early in the day, and give the driver a route that avoids the worst junctions.

Catch and sell on the Thursday, not on the morning of the holiday

Dressed chicken needs a cold chain from the moment it leaves the knife. Birds sold on Easter morning have been up since the early hours, sitting in boxes while they wait for a buyer who may arrive late. A Thursday sale gives the buyer a full day to chill and cook, and gives you a day of margin if the weather or the transport turns.

Catch in the cool hours, usually early morning or late afternoon, and never in the middle of the day when the house is already warm. Carry birds in ventilated crates, not sacks, and keep the crates in shade while you load. A bird that has been stressed in a hot box loses weight and looks poor on the table, and the buyer remembers that longer than the price.

Ask your processor how long before catching they want the feed withdrawn. Many ask for several hours so that the crop is empty when the birds are processed. Agree the time on paper, and mark it on the batch sheet so the feed truck does not arrive in the middle of a withdrawal.

If you are selling live birds, the same rules apply, with one more. Live birds that wait too long in the heat start to pant, and a panting bird is not a good sale.

The four Easter mistakes we see most often

Most failed Easter sales come down to one of four things. Each one is easy to avoid if you know it is coming.

• Placing chicks in March. A broiler needs about seven weeks, so March chicks are ready in May, after the holiday has passed.
• Trusting a verbal collection time. A buyer who says "Thursday, maybe" will often turn up on Friday, or not at all.
• Selling the whole batch to one buyer. If that buyer cancels, the whole batch has no home over the holiday.
• Dropping the price in the last two days. A cut at the last minute teaches regular buyers to wait, and it rarely clears birds you could not sell at the proper price.

Pricing the long weekend without losing your regulars

Easter prices rise, and buyers expect them to. The problem comes when the rise is sudden or applied to people who ordered weeks earlier. A regular who booked in January at the normal price, then is told in April that the price has gone up, will feel cheated, and the farm loses that buyer for the rest of the year.

The fair approach is to set two prices in writing. Orders confirmed before a set date keep the price agreed at booking. Orders confirmed after it pay the holiday price. Put the cut-off date on the same paper as the prices, so there is no argument on the Wednesday. We have seen this simple rule protect more goodwill than any discount.

Do not price the holiday from market talk. Work from your own cost per bird: chick cost, feed to sale weight, medicines, labour, transport and the losses you expect. Then add the margin you want. Our business plan guide shows the layout. If the market price is high, the extra margin belongs to the farm, not to the buyers who trusted you in January.

Table eggs for the holiday bakes

Eggs are a steadier product than broilers. A laying flock gives you a collection every day, so an egg order can be filled over several days rather than in one sale. Bakers and households in the week before Easter often want eggs in crates of 30, and they want them clean, dry and graded. The eggs you sell in the holiday week were laid in the week before, so the flock has to be in lay months ahead.

Collect at least twice a day during the busy weeks, and store the eggs in a cool room, not on a veranda in the sun. Our egg storage guide explains the room and the temperature. Grade the eggs as the buyer asks, and note which house each crate came from. A baker who finds a cracked egg in a crate will call you once, and then they will call someone else.

If you plan to sell eggs for Easter, check the laying curve of your flock on the calendar. Hens do not all come into lay at once, and a flock at its peak in June may be in a slow patch in April. Read the layer start guide before you commit a number to a buyer, and the egg quality guide for what the buyer will inspect.

Checklist for the Easter run

Print this and tick it through the last two weeks before the holiday.

• Easter date written down, with the sale Thursday and the Good Friday and Easter Monday closures marked.
• Chick order placed with a confirmed date, and a backup date agreed in case the hatch slips.
• Each buyer confirmed in writing: weight band, live or dressed, number of birds and collection day.
• Weight samples taken every three days from the second week of March, 30 birds each time.
• Feed withdrawal time agreed with the processor and marked on the batch sheet.
• Mobile money set up for every buyer, with a bank transfer as the backup.
• Transport booked a week ahead and confirmed on the Wednesday.
• Vet number written on the noticeboard, with a second contact.
• Crates clean, ventilated and in the shade on the day.
• Egg crates counted and graded, with the house each crate came from written on the lid.
• Holiday price sheet with a cut-off date, sent to every buyer in writing.
• A reserve buyer lined up for the last 10 per cent of the batch.

After the holiday: the sheet is worth more than the memory

When the last crate has gone, sit down while the details are still fresh. Write down the chick date, the batch size, the weight the birds reached on each sample day, the day each buyer collected and which payments came late. Note what the weather did in the final fortnight. Those lines are what you will use to plan the next Easter, and they are far more useful than the impression that it went well or badly.

Keep the same sheet for the Christmas and Ramadan plans. The three seasons share the same chicks, the same feed and often the same buyers, so one record shows where the farm is strong and where it runs thin. The festive planning guide covers the wider calendar, and our farming calendar lays the seasons out month by month.

Then book the next chick order while the memory of the queue is still fresh. The farms that get the chick date they want are usually the ones that book the next one before the rush.

Questions farmers ask