Short answer: Track six numbers every week: livability, feed conversion for broilers, hen-day production for layers, the dead-on-arrival rate, margin per bird sold, and days to cash. Each has a formula you can run on a calculator, a target from your breed guide, and a first action when it drifts. A short weekly review of those figures will catch a bad batch sooner than a full notebook nobody reads.
Key takeaways
- Pick KPIs that change a decision you will make in the coming week.
- Livability tells you about health, FCR about feed use, and margin about whether the batch paid.
- Use kilograms, not bags, for every feed calculation.
- Compare each batch with its own breed target, not with a neighbour's figures.
- Write the target beside the number on the day you record it.
- Review the same handful of numbers at the same time every week.
A KPI is only useful if it changes Monday's decision
Most farmers we talk to know exactly how many bags of feed they bought last month. Far fewer can say how much live weight those bags produced. That gap is where a farm loses money without anyone noticing.
A key performance indicator, or KPI, is a number you calculate on a schedule and compare with a target. The word target does the work here. A figure on its own tells you nothing. A house that collects 330 eggs in a day is fine if it usually collects 330, and a problem if it usually collects 380. The test we use is simple: if this number moved tomorrow, would you do something different on Monday? If the answer is no, it is a record, not a KPI, and it belongs at the back of the book.
We also think a farm should track fewer KPIs than most advice suggests. Six numbers reviewed every week beat twenty numbers reviewed once a quarter. The table below gives the six we use, the formula for each, and the first thing to check when the figure drifts.
| KPI | How to calculate it | Who it is for | First action when it drifts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Livability | Birds alive at the end, divided by birds placed, times 100 | Broilers and layers | Walk the house, check water, litter and temperature, then call the vet |
| Feed conversion ratio | Feed used in kilograms, divided by live weight gained in kilograms | Broilers | Check feeder access and feed condition, then weigh a fresh sample |
| EPEF | Livability % times average weight in kg times 100, divided by (age in days times FCR) | Comparing broiler batches | Find the weakest week in the batch and work back from it |
| Hen-day production | Eggs collected, divided by hens alive that day, times 100 | Layers | Check lighting, feed, water and any signs of disease |
| Dead-on-arrival rate | Dead chicks counted on arrival, divided by birds on the invoice, times 100 | Any chicks | Photo and count to the hatchery the same day |
| Margin per bird sold | Income from birds, minus chicks, feed and other direct costs, divided by birds sold | Every enterprise | Find the cost line that moved and reprice or fix it |
Livability: the number that shows the house is healthy
Livability is the share of birds still alive at the end of the cycle. It is the mirror of mortality, and it is the first thing we ask about when a farmer calls after a bad batch. If you want the broiler basics before you start counting, our broiler day-old chick page sets out the stock we supply and what a normal first week looks like.
Take a house that received 500 Ross 308 chicks, where 22 birds died between placement and sale. Livability is 478 divided by 500, which is 95.6 per cent, and mortality is the remaining 4.4 per cent. Those figures only become useful when you know what the 22 birds died of. A cluster of deaths in week one points at brooding and chick quality. Deaths between weeks four and six, when the birds are heavy and the house runs hot, often point at water, ventilation or a disease that is not under control. The number says something is wrong. The death log says where to look.
Keep the definition the same for every batch. Decide now whether a bird culled for sickness counts as a death, and write the rule at the top of the sheet. Deaths during transport and on arrival belong on their own line. If you change the definition from one batch to the next, the trend you see is the one you invented with your rules.
Feed conversion and EPEF, and why averages mislead
Feed conversion ratio, or FCR, is the kilograms of feed a flock eats for each kilogram of live weight it puts on. On the same bird, a lower figure is better. The full sums are in our feed conversion article, so here we only show how the figure fits the weekly review.
Use the same 500-chick house. The flock ate 1,890 kilograms of feed and produced 1,051.6 kilograms of live weight, from 478 birds averaging 2.2 kilograms each at sale. FCR is 1,890 divided by 1,051.6, which is 1.80. Feed per bird alive is 3.95 kilograms. Those are the numbers to put on the sheet every week, and they tell you far more than a bag count does.
EPEF, the European production efficiency factor, folds livability, weight, age and FCR into one score, so batches of different lengths can be compared. For the same house it is 95.6 times 2.2 times 100, divided by 42 days times 1.80, which comes to about 278. We use it to compare batches with each other, not to judge a single day. Take the target from your breed's own performance guide. A figure a forum poster quotes may come from a different bird, a different climate or a different feed programme.
Averages hide bad weeks. If weeks one to three were good and weeks four to six went badly, the final FCR can still look acceptable on paper. Weigh a sample of birds every week at roughly the same time of day, and calculate the gain since the last sample. Our weight chart by week gives you a benchmark to weigh against, and it shows the week that went wrong while there is still time to act on it.
The chick cost you cannot see on the feed bill
Many farmers track feed closely and forget the chicks, because the chick invoice is paid once at the start and then goes out of mind. That is a mistake. The chick is the first and largest single input in a broiler crop, and its cost has to be spread across every kilogram you sell.
At our starting price of GH₵20 per Ross 308 chick, the 500 birds in the example cost GH₵10,000 before a single bag of feed is opened. Divide that by 1,051.6 kilograms of live weight and the chicks alone account for about GH₵9.51 of every kilogram you sell. Feed comes on top. If feed costs you a certain amount per kilogram, the feed cost per kilogram of live bird is your FCR multiplied by that price. At an FCR of 1.80, every cedi added to the feed price becomes about 1.80 cedis on the bird.
Two things follow. A higher FCR is more expensive than it looks, because it multiplies the feed price. A higher mortality is expensive twice over, because you paid for the chick that died and then fed it for days. The margin figure later in this article pulls these costs together, but keep the chick cost on its own line in the sheet so you can see it move.
Chick prices depend on the breed and on the size of the order, so check the current figures on our starting prices page before you put any number into a budget. Do not carry last season's price into this season's sheet.
Layer KPIs: hen-day production and what the cracks tell you
For laying hens the core figure is hen-day production: the eggs collected in a day, divided by the hens alive that day, shown as a percentage. Take 400 hens that laid 330 eggs in a day. Hen-day production is 82.5 per cent. The figure only means something if you count the hens every morning. If two hens died overnight and you still divide by 400, you understate performance and then chase a problem that is not there.
Watch cracked and dirty eggs next. Nine cracked or dirty eggs out of 330 is 2.7 per cent. A sudden rise often points at feed calcium, nest set-up, the age of the flock or a stress event, and each one needs a different fix. We would rather see the figure on the sheet than a tray of broken eggs in the kitchen.
Feed per dozen eggs ties the two together. Those 400 hens ate 46 kilograms that day, which is about 139 grams per egg, or 1.67 kilograms per dozen. Compare this with your own feed programme rather than a neighbour's, because feed type, bird age and temperature all move it. If you are still choosing which layer to start, the layer day-old chick page lists the breeds we hatch and what each one is known for in a house.
Lighting and water also show up in egg numbers before they show up anywhere else. A dip in hen-day production with no change in feed is a reason to check the water lines and the light programme on the same morning, before you call anyone.
Dead-on-arrival rate: the number that starts the batch
Dead-on-arrival is the first KPI of any batch, and most farms never track it. Count the chicks box by box the moment they come off the vehicle, and write the number down before you sign. A bird dead when the box opens is a supplier question. A bird that dies in the first 48 hours with no obvious cause is a brooding question, and the answer is often temperature, water, or feed that the chicks cannot reach.
Our rule is that a dead-on-arrival chick is replaced free in the next hatch, provided the count and a photo reach us on WhatsApp the same day. That only works if the number exists. Use the rate to compare deliveries. Six dead out of 500 is 1.2 per cent. If the figure jumps to 4 per cent on a later delivery, check the transport and the loading before you blame the hatch.
Track the rate by delivery date and keep the batch record beside it. The batch record shows the vaccines the chicks received at the hatchery, so when a flock shows trouble in week two you can rule things in or out faster. Our delivery page explains how boxes travel, and the article on transporting live birds shows how heat and crowding on the road turn into deaths days later.
Cash and sales numbers that stop the slow leak
Production figures can look healthy while the business loses money, so the last two KPIs are about cash. The first is margin per bird sold: the income from the birds, less the chick cost, the feed cost and any other direct costs such as vaccines, litter and transport, divided by the number of birds sold.
The second is days to cash, the average gap between dispatch and the money reaching your account or your mobile money wallet. A batch that sells well but takes six weeks to pay can starve the next batch of its chicks. Put the figure beside the outstanding balance, so a slow payer shows up as a number rather than a feeling you carry around.
A third number is the price you actually realised per kilogram, set against the price you planned. If you budgeted one figure and sold lower because a buyer rejected birds for size, that gap is a KPI in its own right. Our guide to when to sell broilers explains how timing moves the weight and therefore the price, and break-even analysis shows the line your margin has to clear.
Need chicks for your next batch?
Send breed, number and town. We reply with price, hatch date and delivery cost in writing.
A one-page dashboard you can fill in twenty minutes
The dashboard is one page, not a folder. Put the six KPIs in rows, with columns for this week, the target, and the same figure from the last batch. Add two lines underneath for notes: what drifted, and what you did about it. If the dashboard takes longer than twenty minutes to fill in every week, it is too busy, so keep cutting until it does not.
For a broiler flock, the most useful weekly layout shows livability to date, this week's weight sample, FCR to date, days since placement, the chick cost per kilogram at the current weight, and the margin forecast for the sale date. For a layer flock, use weekly hen-day production, cracks, feed per dozen, and the mortality line. The layout matters less than the habit of filling it at the same time each week, on the same day, before the week's decisions are made.
Keep the dashboard in the same file as the daily sheet, on its own tab, so that the numbers feed into it rather than being copied by hand. Hand copying is where most errors enter, and it is also the step that gets skipped first when the week gets busy.
Seasonal swings: harmattan, rain and the festive rush
Ghana's seasons move the KPIs in predictable ways, so read the numbers with the calendar beside them. From about December to February the harmattan dust and cold nights, especially inland and in the north, push up respiratory trouble in the house, and mortality can rise for reasons that have nothing to do with feed. In the rainy months, wet litter and humid houses raise the risk of coccidiosis, and FCR often drifts when feed absorbs moisture in a store that is not sealed.
The festive rush adds a sales problem to the production one. Birds for Christmas, Easter or Sallah have to reach weight on a fixed date, and the KPI that matters most is the weight sample taken about two weeks before the sale. If that sample is light, the decision to hold birds longer costs feed every single day. Our Christmas broiler timing article works through the back-calculation. Plan the placement date from the sale date, not the other way round.
Put the seasonal reminder on the dashboard itself. A line that says "harmattan, watch respiratory signs" in December stops a farmer from reading a rise in deaths as a feed problem and reaching for the wrong fix.
Mistakes we see most with KPIs
- Dividing deaths by birds sold instead of birds placed, which makes mortality look smaller than it is.
- Recording feed in bags, so the FCR cannot be checked against the weight sample.
- Counting dead-on-arrival birds in the livability figure, which blames the house for a delivery problem.
- Using a neighbour's targets from a different breed, season or feed programme.
- Averaging the whole batch and missing the week that went wrong.
- Recording the number but not the action, so the same problem turns up in the next batch.
The last one is the most common and the cheapest to fix. Write one line under each KPI that says what you did, even if the answer is "nothing yet, check again Friday". A note like that is worth more than another column of data.
Our weekly review, in plain terms
- Pick one fixed day and time, and have the daily sheet up to date before you sit down.
- Update livability and hen-day production from the daily figures.
- Weigh a sample of birds and calculate this week's gain and the FCR to date.
- Check cracked eggs, and the dead-on-arrival figure for any delivery still in question.
- Set each figure against the target written beside it, and mark anything that drifted.
- Write one action for each drift, with a date to check whether it worked.
- Update the margin forecast for the sale date, and the days to cash on open invoices.
We would rather see a farmer do this in twenty minutes every Friday than spend a Saturday rebuilding a spreadsheet nobody trusts. If you want help setting targets for your breed, message us on WhatsApp at +233 24 915 1503. When you are ready to start the next batch, you can place your order or ask our frequently asked questions first.
Questions farmers ask
What are the most important KPIs for a poultry farm?
For broilers, the core set is livability, feed conversion ratio, weight at sale and margin per bird. For layers, use hen-day production, cracked and dirty eggs and feed per dozen. Both types benefit from the dead-on-arrival rate and days to cash, because they show problems at the start and the end of the batch.
Why does a higher feed conversion ratio cost so much?
Feed is the largest running cost, and the ratio multiplies its price. If your FCR is 1.80 and feed costs a given amount per kilogram, every kilogram of live bird costs 1.80 times that amount in feed. A small rise in FCR over a batch adds up fast, because it applies to every bird in the house.
What is a good livability figure for broilers?
There is no single number that suits every house. Breed, season, housing and how deaths are recorded all change it. Use the target in your breed's performance guide, and watch the trend. One week below target matters less than two weeks in a row, and a fall in livability should always send you to the house before the feed.
Why do I divide by the hens alive, not the hens I bought?
Because the eggs come from the hens that are alive that day. Dividing by the original number understates production every time a hen dies. Count the flock each morning, record the number at the start of the day, and use that figure in the production calculation for the same day.
Is EPEF worth calculating on a small farm?
It is worth it if you run batches back to back, because it lets you compare batches of different lengths on one line. For a single small flock, livability and FCR tell you most of what EPEF does. Compare the result with your breed's guide, not with figures quoted for other breeds or climates.
How often should I review poultry KPIs?
Once a week is the minimum for most farms, with the daily sheet feeding it. Check livability and egg output daily, take weight samples weekly, and review margin at the end of each batch. A monthly review is too slow to catch a feed problem before it has cost you a batch.
What should I do when a KPI drifts?
Walk the house first and check water, feeder access, litter and temperature. Look at the feed condition and take a fresh weight sample. If deaths are rising or birds show signs of disease, call your vet and follow their advice. Write the action and a check date beside the number, so you can see whether the fix worked.
