Surviving the Feed-Price Crisis on a Ghana Poultry Farm

Count your days before you count your losses

The first call usually comes with a panic and no numbers. The farmer says the feed price has jumped, the bags are running low, and he does not know whether he has four days or fourteen. So the first job is always the same: go to the store with a pen and a notebook and count.

Write down every bag, every half bag and every bin, and convert them to kilos. Then divide by what the flock eats in a day. That gives you days of feed on hand. Do this for every house separately, because the birds in the older house are eating far more than the chicks in the new one, and one average will hide the problem.

Once you have days of feed, decide what it means. Under a week and you must buy now, even at a high price, because running out in the middle of the grower phase costs more than any spike. Two to three weeks and you have room to choose. More than that, and you can afford to wait for a better lot, provided the store is dry.

The three things that stay off the cut list

When costs climb, the cuts that feel sensible are the ones that go wrong fastest. Feed you can rebuild in a week. A missed vaccine or a dry drinker line can take a batch down in a fortnight.

Keep three things untouched: the vaccination schedule your vet set, clean water in front of every bird every hour of the day, and the ventilation and heat in the house. We have seen farmers save a few cedis of feed in one month and lose chicks to a preventable disease the next. Follow your vet's schedule, and do not stretch vaccine intervals to save money.

Water is the one people forget. A bird that cannot drink eats less and grows less, so the feed you already paid for turns into waste. Check the drinker lines each morning and after every power cut. Keep a spare pump or a bucket system ready if the tank runs low, because a dry afternoon in a hot house does more damage than a bad ration.

Stop the leaks before you touch the ration

Spillage is the cheapest feed you will ever recover. Walk the house at feeding time and look at the floor under each feeder. A scoop of wasted mash looks small until you add it up over a month. Most of the leak comes from feeders filled too high, pans that are too shallow for the birds, and feeder rims that were set for chicks and never raised.

Fix them in this order. Raise the feeder rim to back height as the birds grow. Fill the pans part way rather than to the brim. Sweep the floor under the feeders each morning into a bin, not into the litter where the birds will scratch it up again. Then look at the store. A split bag, a torn corner by the door or a rat hole in the wall is feed that never reaches a bird.

For a full walk-through of where feed goes missing, read our guide to reducing feed wastage before you change anything in the ration.

Buy the amount your store can keep dry

When prices spike, the temptation is to buy a big lot and be the hero of the farm for a week. Sometimes that is right. Often it is a bad bet. A large lot sitting in a warm store through the rains is the most likely place for mould to start, and aflatoxin does not announce itself on the label.

Buy the amount that your store can keep dry for the time you need it, and split the purchase into two or three deliveries if the supplier allows it. Ask for the price in writing, with the delivery date and the feed specification. Keep that paper with the batch record. If you can only store two weeks, do not buy six. Our notes on keeping feed dry are in storing poultry feed and avoiding aflatoxin.

A worked week for 250 chicks in a spike

Say you placed 250 Ross 308 chicks. At our starting price of 20 cedis each, that is 5,000 cedis of chick cost before a single bag of feed is bought. Feed is usually the largest cost in a broiler batch, so the feed bill is where a spike bites hardest. We sell chicks in boxes of 50, and a box of 50 Ross 308 is 1,000 cedis at the same starting price. If you are still choosing a breed, our broiler day-old chicks page lists the options side by side.

Now imagine the feed price rises sharply in week three, when the birds start eating in earnest. You have nine days of feed in the store and the next delivery is due on Thursday. You do four things in that order. You confirm the delivery in writing. You check that the drinkers and the vaccines are on schedule. You fix the feeder heights and the store. Then you weigh ten birds to set a baseline before any change. Only after that do you look at the ration.

That order is the difference between a hard week and a lost batch. Farmers who go straight to the ration often change three things at once, and then cannot tell which change helped or hurt.

Cheaper ingredients: test small, weigh often

Every crisis brings a list of cheaper ingredients from neighbours and phone groups. Some are sound. Others are cheap because they are poor. We do not give you a shopping list here, because the right swap depends on what is in your bag and what your birds need at that age. Our companion guide on cheaper poultry feed alternatives sets out the trade-offs in more detail.

The rule is simple. Change the ration for one house, not the whole farm. Leave a second house on the old feed for comparison. Run the test for at least a week, and weigh birds from both houses at the same time of day. Ask whether the test house looks as lively, eats as steadily and produces firm, normal droppings. If the answer is no, go back the next morning.

The weigh-back test that shows a change is safe

Feed records tell you what went into the trough. They do not tell you whether the birds are growing. A weigh-back does. Pick ten birds at random from each house, weigh them before feeding on the same morning each week, and write the average down. Compare the trend with the growth you expected at that age, using our broiler weight chart by week as a rough guide.

Write a stop rule before you change anything. For example, if the test house falls behind the control for two weeks running, the old feed goes back the next day. A stop rule takes the emotion out of the decision. Without one, farmers tend to keep a failing change for a month because they hope it will recover on its own.

Tell your buyers before they hear it elsewhere

When your costs move, your buyers will notice sooner or later. The farmers who keep their customers tell them early and in plain words. Explain that feed has risen sharply, say whether you are holding your price for the next order, and name the date you will review it. Buyers accept a planned change far more easily than a surprise on the day of collection.

Never promise a price you cannot cover. If you agree a fixed price for birds that will be sold in six weeks, you are betting on feed for six weeks. Either price that risk in, or shorten the commitment until you can see the market again. Our frequently asked questions cover how orders and payment work if you are planning a new batch around a sale.

Plan the next batch on the price you actually pay

The worst time to decide the next batch is when the feed invoice is in front of you. Decide it from the numbers in this batch. Work out the feed cost per bird from your own sheets, add the chick cost, and check whether your expected sale price still covers both. If it does not, you have three choices, and the next section sets them out.

What you should not do is wait for prices to fall and leave the house empty. An empty house earns nothing, while rent, power and labour keep running. Once the numbers are settled, message us on WhatsApp at +233 24 915 1503 and we will work out chick numbers against your store, or go straight to the order form. Current starting prices for each breed are on our day-old chick prices page, and if you are restocking more than one house, our bulk day-old chicks page explains how larger orders are handled.

Sell early, hold or shrink: three ways out

If the numbers do not work, you have three options. Sell earlier, if the birds are at a saleable weight and buyers are waiting. Hold, if the birds are still young and the feed in store will finish them without a rush purchase. Shrink, by selling down or leaving the second house empty for a cycle. Each option has a cost, and the table sets out what you take on with each one.

A seven-day checklist when feed is running away

Use this list on the first day of a spike and repeat it each week until the market settles. Tick each line on paper and keep the sheet in the store.

1. Count days of feed in each store and in each house.
2. Confirm the next delivery in writing, with date and price.
3. Check water lines and vaccine dates against your vet's schedule.
4. Raise feeders, fill pans part way and sweep the floor under them.
5. Inspect the store for splits, damp corners and signs of rats.
6. Weigh ten birds per house and record the baseline.
7. Write a stop rule for any ration change, then test it on one house.
8. Message your buyers with the date you will review prices.

The mistakes we see when the panic starts

The first mistake is buying the cheapest feed in the market with no specification on the bag. The second is buying in a rush at the top of a spike. The third is switching rations three times in a week, so that nobody can say what caused the trouble. The fourth is reading only the invoices and never reading the birds.

A flock that is still eating well and gaining weight is one you can afford, even when feed is dear. A flock that stands flat and quiet around the drinkers is telling you something the bill will not. Listen to that flock first, then open the invoice.

Questions farmers ask