Roughly GH₵65,000 to GH₵80,000 leaves your account before a single bird reaches a buyer. That is the working capital for a 1,000-bird batch, from the day-old chick to the weighing scale, and it is the figure any serious partner should have in front of them before anything else gets discussed.
Most people who price a broiler house start with the sale price and work backwards. The sale price is the part nobody controls. Costs are more predictable, so a sensible plan starts there, and that is where most of the surprises come from when a batch goes wrong.
The ledger, line by line
Start with the chick. Day-old broilers, Cobb 500 or Ross 308, cost from GH₵20 each at Agro Prime. The hatchery vaccinates against Marek's disease at day zero, and Newcastle or Gumboro cover depends on the batch. Ask which vaccines your batch received and write them into the agreement, because an assumption left unwritten is the first thing to cause an argument later.
Feed is the second line and the largest. A broiler eats about 4.2 kg of feed from day one until it leaves for market. At GAPFA member prices of GH₵400 to GH₵410 for a 50 kg bag of broiler starter, that comes to between GH₵33.60 and GH₵34.44 per bird.
Everything else sits in one bucket of about GH₵12 per bird. That bucket holds brooding heat, litter, vaccines and vitamins, labour and utilities. It looks small on paper, which is exactly why it gets underbudgeted. The heat has to run from the first morning, and the litter goes down before the birds arrive, whether the batch turns out healthy or not.
| Cost line | Per bird (GH₵) | 1,000-bird batch (GH₵) |
|---|---|---|
| Day-old chick | 20.00 | 20,000 |
| Feed, 4.2 kg at GH₵8.00 to 8.20 per kg (GAPFA member price) | 33.60 to 34.44 | 33,600 to 34,440 |
| Brooding, litter, vaccines and vitamins, labour, utilities | about 12.00 | about 12,000 |
| Total placed, chick to market, before losses | 65.60 to 66.44 | 65,600 to 66,440 |
| Same batch on De Heus list-price feed (GH₵451 to 472 per bag) | 69.88 to 71.65 | 69,880 to 71,650 |
Read the table as a range rather than a single figure. The bottom of the working range assumes the cheaper feed route and an ordinary spend on everything else. The top, around GH₵80,000, leaves room for other costs running well above their GH₵12 average, which is what a house needing extra heat and labour early on can look like.
None of these figures includes the building, the equipment you already own or the land. Those are capital costs that either sit with you or are paid separately. This ledger covers the cycle, and only the cycle.
Where a ledger usually goes wrong
Three assumptions do most of the damage. The first is mortality. A plan built on an optimistic loss rate looks tidy on paper, but it has no room for a bad week. Set the loss rate at a level you could defend to a sceptical partner, then test what happens above it.
The second is feed price. A bag price written into a plan on the day you sign is a snapshot. If the agreement does not say whether that price holds, the amount you pay later can differ from the one on the page.
The third is the cost that never appears on the chick invoice. It is the heat that runs through a cold night, the labour that cleans the house before the next batch, and the water and power that keep it working. None of these is large alone. Together they are the difference between the ledger and the bank statement.
What dead birds cost you
The ledger assumes every chick reaches the scale, and none of them do. A well-managed house loses about 3 to 5 per cent of its birds over a cycle. A house with poor management or disease can lose 10 to 20 per cent. That spread explains more than anything else why two batches started on the same day can finish with very different results.
Mortality does more than remove income. Every bird that dies has already eaten feed and taken its share of heat and labour. The placed cost is still spent, but it now sits across fewer sellable birds. At 5 per cent mortality, the GH₵66.44 placed cost works out to about GH₵70 for each bird you actually sell. At 10 per cent it is about GH₵74, and at 20 per cent it climbs to roughly GH₵83.
That is where the break-even figure of about GH₵70 to GH₵81 per bird sold comes from. A quiet-month price of GH₵75 to GH₵80 clears that with very little room to spare. At 20 per cent losses, even the top of the quiet range falls short.
Mortality is also the figure you can watch most closely while a batch is running. In a well-kept weekly report it should move in small, explainable steps. A sudden jump with no note about heat, water or disease deserves a phone call the same day, not a line in the closing report.
What the sale has to cover
Market-ready birds take six to seven weeks and weigh about 2.3 to 2.55 kg live. In quiet months they sell for around GH₵75 to GH₵80 each. At Christmas, Easter and Eid the price goes above GH₵100.
Take a batch of 1,000 chicks with 5 per cent losses, so 950 birds reach the buyer. At GH₵75 each, sales come to GH₵71,250. Against a placed cost of GH₵66,440, that leaves about GH₵4,800, or roughly GH₵5 per bird sold. At GH₵80 the margin is about GH₵10 per bird. Sold into a GH₵100 peak, the same batch clears around GH₵30 per bird.
The typical net profit of GH₵12 to GH₵20 per bird in a normal cycle sits between those quiet and peak outcomes. That middle figure depends on the mix of prices you actually hit, which is why timing matters as much as cost control. The sums above are illustrations built from the ranges, not a forecast for any particular house.
A fixed monthly return is a red flag
Every number in this ledger moves. Feed prices change, mortality differs from house to house, and the market sets the price on sale day. An offer that promises a fixed monthly return on a broiler batch is promising something the cycle cannot guarantee. Ghana's Securities and Exchange Commission has warned the public about fixed-return schemes for this reason. Ask for the cost and sale assumptions in writing before any money moves.
The first fortnight
The first two weeks decide more of the batch than most plans admit. The chicks arrive hungry and need a warm, dry house, with clean water and starter feed in front of them at all times. A house that is too cold, too damp or short of water in those days loses birds that would otherwise have sold, and those losses show up later as mortality in the ledger.
Plan the labour before the chicks arrive, not after. Someone has to check heat, water and feed several times a day, look at the birds for anything that seems off, and keep a written count of the birds still alive. That time has a cost, and it sits in the GH₵12 bucket whether you pay it to a worker or to yourself.
Vaccination dates matter here too. Ask for the schedule in writing, including the day each dose is due, so you can check the hatchery's record against the batch you are paying for.
Cash moves before it comes back
From placement to payout, including clean-out, a cycle runs about eight weeks. A house can turn five or six batches a year, so this ledger repeats that many times. A cedi lost per bird in one cycle is multiplied across the year, and a cost you missed once tends to come back.
Most of your cash leaves before any bird is sold. The chicks and the first bags of feed go out at placement, the brooding bill starts on day one, and the losses you have not yet had are still ahead of you. Keep a reserve that covers the second half of the cycle, not only the first week. Starting a batch with money matched exactly to the ledger is how one bad week turns into a failed batch.
If you are still asking whether the numbers work at all, our piece on whether broiler farming is profitable in Ghana sets out the wider picture. The cash flow breakeven guide shows how the timing of costs and sales interact. For the chick side of the ledger, the day-old chick page explains what you are buying at placement.
Capital is the number that matters first when a batch runs late. A cycle that takes longer than planned keeps the house, the heat and the labour committed, and that is when a thin reserve becomes a problem.
Test the ledger against your own assumptions
The calculator on the partner page lets you try a batch before you commit. Try a few scenarios and change one figure at a time, so you can see which assumption drives the result. If a result surprises you, message the farm on WhatsApp before you decide.
What to put in writing
A ledger is only as good as the agreement that sits beside it. Before any money moves, a batch arrangement should state the chick price, the feed brand and bag price, the vaccination programme, how mortality is reported, and what happens to capital and profit. It should also say how the sale is handled and when the payout arrives.
Agro Prime's batch partnership runs on a written profit-share agreement signed before placement, with photo, weight, feed and mortality reports every Thursday. Capital comes back first, then profit is split as agreed. Payouts go by bank or MoMo days after the final sale, and payments only ever go to the Agro Prime Ghana Limited company account.
Start with the cost, then the price
A 1,000-bird batch asks for roughly GH₵65,000 to GH₵80,000, and what comes back depends on the birds, the feed and the market. The careful investor reads the ledger first, asks for mortality figures in plain numbers, and treats the sale price as a range rather than a promise. If the sums hold on paper and the terms are written down, you can start judging the farm itself.
See the batch terms and calculator
For the next step on this question, read our poultry business plan guide for Ghana.
