Poultry Farming Mistakes Beginners Make in Ghana

Chicks arriving before the brooder is ready

This is the mistake we hear about most, and it usually goes the same way. The farmer has spent two weeks saying the house will be ready. The chicks are booked for Saturday. On Friday night the brooder is still a pile of damp sawdust and the gas burner has not been lit. The box lands in a cold, wet pen, and by Monday the first deaths are in the record.

A brooder needs to be running for at least 24 to 48 hours before the chicks come through the door. That time lets the floor warm, the litter dry, the drinkers fill and settle, and the heat spread at chick level rather than hanging under the roof. Put the thermometer where the chicks stand, not on the wall. The reading that matters is the one the chicks are sitting in.

Harmattan changes the picture. From December to February the nights in the Central Region can turn cold, and the dust gets into everything. We have seen farmers get the heat right at midday and lose birds at four in the morning, because the lamp was sized for the afternoon. Check the pen at night for the first two weeks.

The fix is dull but it works: set a date for the brooder check, not just a delivery date. If the house is not ready, tell us early. Chicks leave the hatchery the day they hatch, so we cannot keep them on our side while you finish the pen. We will look at the hatch calendar with you and find a date that works.

Buying the cheapest chick and calling it a bargain

A box of 50 Plymouth Rock chicks costs 350 GH₵ with us. A box of 50 Ross 308 costs 1,000 GH₵. A farmer who looks only at the box price buys the Plymouth Rock, feels clever for about a month, and then starts to wonder why the numbers do not add up.

The two birds are not the same job. Ross 308 is a broiler, bred to put on weight fast, and it is ready for the table at around six weeks. The Plymouth Rock is a dual-purpose bird. It grows more slowly and earns its keep through eggs and a later sale. Buy a broiler price for a dual-purpose plan, or the other way round, and the figures in your head will never match the birds in the pen.

Here is the sum that matters. Say you pay 1,000 GH₵ for 50 Ross chicks and you lose 4 in the first week. You have 46 birds to sell, so the chick cost for each bird you keep is about 21.7 GH₵. Now do the same sum for the cheaper box. Divide the box price by the birds still alive at sale, then add feed, vaccines and the weeks you wait. The chick price is only the first line.

Look at the breed guides before you choose. Our broiler and layer pages list what each bird needs, and the breed pages explain where each one fits in a farm plan.

Hatching birds before you know who will buy them

Most beginners we talk to can name the breed. Fewer can name the buyer. Ask yourself who takes the birds at the end. It might be a chop bar in Kasoa, a caterer, a neighbour who wants live birds for a party, or a trader who wants a steady weekly lot. Each one wants a different weight and a different day.

Festive demand is the easiest thing to plan for and the easiest thing to miss. Christmas broilers have to be on the table by mid to late December, so the chicks need to go in around late October or early November. We have had WhatsApp messages in the first week of December from people who wanted 300 broilers 'for next week'. There are no next-week broilers. Read the Christmas timing article before you book anything for the season.

Write the market down before you order. A single line is enough: '120 live birds, ready 15 December, buyer confirmed by phone.' If you cannot write that line, you are not ready to order yet, and the chicks will sit in your pen waiting for a decision you have not made.

Running out of feed on a Sunday

Feed shops in Ghana often close early on Sundays, and some close on Saturday afternoon. Your birds do not know that. A broiler house that runs dry on a Sunday afternoon has a bad week ahead, because birds that go off feed for even a day lose growth they never make back.

Work out your weekly feed before the chicks land. In the first week a chick eats only a few grams a day, so the first bags seem to last forever. By week four a flock of 50 broilers can be eating roughly 5 to 6 kg a day. That is a 50 kg bag gone in about ten days. The number that matters is the feed you use in your busiest week, not the average you wrote on paper.

1. Calculate daily feed for the flock at each stage, using your supplier's guide.
2. Keep at least two weeks of the next stage of feed in the store before day one.
3. Write the bag count on the wall beside the store door.
4. When you drop to one bag, order the next one that day, not the day after.

One more thing. Check the bags for damp and weevils when they come in. Stored feed that sat near a leaking roof in the rainy season will look fine on top and be mouldy underneath.

Water that stops flowing for an afternoon

Nobody counts water until the birds start gasping. Chicks drink more than they eat in the first days, and on a hot afternoon a broiler drinks far more than the feed bag would suggest. A tank that runs dry at two o'clock is common in the dry season, especially when the pump runs on a timer or the power goes off at a bad hour.

Walk the drinkers twice a day in week one. Check that every drinker has water and that none of them drip onto the litter. A drinker leaking onto the same patch all day turns into a soggy square that smells by the end of week two, and wet litter is the next problem on the list.

We recommend a storage tank that holds at least one full day of water for the flock. Fill it before the power is likely to fail, and keep a bucket and a clean jug by the house. When the pump fails, you want water in the drinkers before the birds show you it is missing.

Keeping no records at all

Ask a beginner how many birds died last week and you get a guess. Ask an experienced farmer and you get a number, a date, and a cause the vet has confirmed. The gap between those two answers is where the money goes missing.

Every order from us comes with a batch record that lists the vaccines given at the hatchery and the dates. Your vet will use it to plan the next visit. It does not replace your own log. You need a daily sheet that shows deaths, feed used, water checks and any bird that looked wrong. A notebook is enough. A phone note is enough if you back it up.

Once a week, weigh a sample of birds. Ten birds picked from different parts of the house, weighed on the same scale, tell you more than your eye does. If the week four weights fall behind the breed guide, you learn it in week four and not at sale time when the buyer is waiting.

Our record keeping article shows a simple sheet layout. The habit that matters most is writing the death count every day, on the same line, even when the answer is zero.

Shutting the house up to keep the chicks warm

A closed house feels safe. It is not. Chicks in a sealed pen breathe the ammonia that rises off wet litter, along with moisture from their own droppings. The damage shows up as coughing, eye irritation and sluggish birds. Those look like a disease, but they are usually a ventilation problem.

The rule we give farmers is simple: warm the chicks, not the whole air. Use a brooder guard to keep a warm zone around the heat source, and let the rest of the house breathe at chick height. When you walk in, you should smell a faint ammonia and not have your eyes sting. If they sting, open the sides and let the air run before the next feed round.

Harmattan dust makes this harder. Shut curtains keep the dust out, but the air gets stale inside. Use a fine mesh and clean it every few days instead of sealing the house. Dust and ammonia together are the worst mix you can give a young chick, and it is the reason we see so many late-week losses in December and January.

Letting visitors and other birds walk through the pen

Every bird that wanders in from a neighbour's compound is a risk to your flock. We have seen beginners lose a whole first batch after a visitor walked from a sick house to a clean one in the same shoes. The chicks were fine when they left us. The disease came in from outside.

Keep one pair of boots for the house and wash them at the door. Limit visitors to the path and keep them out of the pen. Keep ducks, guinea fowl and wild birds out of the house. Our biosecurity guide covers the detail, and it is worth reading before the first box lands.

The cheapest thing you can do this week is put a foot dip at the house door and fill it every day with a disinfectant your vet recommends. A foot dip costs very little. A dead flock costs the whole cycle.

Missing the vaccine calendar

The chicks you buy from us are vaccinated at the hatchery against Marek's, Newcastle disease, Gumboro, infectious bronchitis and coccidiosis. That protection is the start, not the whole plan. The vaccines you give on the farm, and their timing, are set by your vet. A forum post cannot do that job for you.

The mistake usually falls at one of two extremes. Some farmers give nothing because the birds look healthy. Others give every vaccine they hear about, on the day they hear about it, and stress the birds in the process. Both approaches fail. Pick a vet, agree a schedule, write it on the wall, and tick it off when it is done.

A missed date is the dangerous one, because nothing looks wrong until the first sick bird. Follow your vet's advice on dates and methods, and do not borrow another farm's calendar. Their birds, their house and their disease history are not yours.

Ordering the exact number you want to sell

If you want 500 birds at sale, buy more than 500. Losses happen, and most of them happen in the first week. A farmer who orders exactly 500 and loses 20 in week one has a short sale and a bad feeling for the rest of the cycle.

A bird found dead on the day of delivery is covered by our free replacement in the next hatch, but only if the count is on record that day. Open the box, count, and message us a photo of the count before you do anything else. We can only check what we can see, and a photo taken on the day is what lets us do that. A count made two days later is hard to prove for either side.

Plan the loss in the order. Buy the chicks, count them on arrival, write the number, and then decide how many you can afford to lose. Add a small margin to the order, and do not pretend the margin is for sale.

The mistakes at a glance

Use this table as a check before every batch. Each row names the mistake, the sign you will see first, and the fix that takes the least time.

Before the box arrives: a checklist

Print this and stick it by the house door. Tick each line before the delivery date, not on the morning of it.

1. Brooder running for 24 to 48 hours, with a thermometer reading at chick height.
2. Drinkers filled, checked, and not dripping onto the litter.
3. Two weeks of feed in the store, bag count written on the wall.
4. Storage tank holding at least one full day of water.
5. Daily record sheet printed and placed by the house door.
6. Foot dip at the door and one pair of boots kept for the house.
7. Vet booked for the first visit, with the vaccine schedule written down.
8. Buyer named and sale date written in your notebook.
9. Delivery date checked against the brooder check date, not the other way round.

Where we would start if we were you

If you are starting small, one box of 50 is a sensible first order. It is enough to learn the house, the feed and the records without tying up too much cash. Our minimum order is one box, and orders of 1,000 or more are quoted individually, so there is no need to start big.

Before you call, look at the prices page so you know what a box costs. For broilers, see the broiler chicks page. For layers, see the layer chicks page. Call or WhatsApp us on +233 24 915 1503, or place your order through our order form when you are ready. Farm visits are by appointment, and we are happy to walk you through the brooder before the chicks come.

Questions farmers ask