GH₵66,000 leaves the account before a single bird is sold. For a 1,000-bird broiler batch, that is roughly what the chicks, feed and daily care cost from the first morning to the day the birds are loaded for market.
Most people hear a return figure first and the cost second, and that order is backwards. A return only means something once you know what went in and what the birds can realistically sell for. This article works through both, using the figures we use ourselves, and it shows where a batch is most likely to go wrong.
Where the first GH₵66,000 goes
Start with one bird and multiply. A day-old Cobb 500 or Ross 308 from our hatchery in Kasoa costs from GH₵20. Marek's vaccine goes in on day zero at the hatchery, and Newcastle and Gumboro cover is often added by batch, depending on what the flock needs.
Feed is the big one. A broiler eats about 4.2 kilograms from day one to market. A 50 kg bag of broiler starter sells at GAPFA member prices of GH₵400 to GH₵410, which works out to roughly GH₵8.00 to GH₵8.20 a kilo. That puts feed at about GH₵34 per bird, just over half of everything you spend on it.
Feed also needs a dry, covered store. Bags that take in damp air during the rainy season can cake and lose palatability, and the birds notice before you do. Buy in quantities the store can hold for a few weeks, and check the bags for weevils or moisture before they go into the house.
Everything else, from brooding heat and litter to vaccines, vitamins, labour and utilities, comes to about GH₵12 per bird. Scaled to 1,000 birds, the sum looks like this:
- Chicks: 1,000 birds at GH₵20, so GH₵20,000
- Feed: 4,200 kg, about 84 bags, so roughly GH₵33,600 to GH₵34,400
- Brooding, litter, vaccines, labour and utilities: about GH₵12,000
- Total: roughly GH₵65,600 to GH₵66,400
The GH₵65,000 to GH₵80,000 range we quote for a 1,000-bird batch is wider than that sum, and the gap is deliberate. Feed bought at the De Heus list price of GH₵451 to GH₵472 a bag adds several thousand cedis to the same 84 bags. Costs also move from one batch to the next. A budget that assumes the cheapest case every time will run short on the day the cheap case does not show up.
When the money goes out
The cost is not spent evenly. Chicks are paid for at placement, and the first bags of feed are bought within days of that. Through the middle weeks, feed is the steady drain, and the bill grows as the birds eat more each day. The sale money does not arrive until the birds are loaded, which is six or seven weeks in, and payout follows days after the final sale.
That gap between spending and selling is where a batch can strain a small operation. A grower who runs out of cash in week four cannot buy the feed for week five, however good the birds look. This is one reason the capital side of a batch deserves as much attention as the return side.
What the birds sell for
A broiler reaches market at six to seven weeks, weighing roughly 2.3 to 2.55 kg live. The price depends on the calendar more than on anything else you control. In quiet months a live bird sells for about GH₵75 to GH₵80. Around Christmas, Easter and Eid, buyers pay GH₵100 or more, and a good year is largely made in those few weeks.
The figures in this article are per live bird, so a heavier bird does not automatically earn more by weight. The price also depends on who buys and in what lots. A buyer taking the whole batch at once may pay less per bird than one taking smaller lots over several days, and the price at the farm gate is rarely identical to the price in a city market. Factor that in before you treat any single price as fixed.
Put a sale price against the same batch and the picture changes quickly. The table below is an illustrative calculation, not a forecast. It assumes 960 birds are sold from 1,000 placed, which is 4% mortality, and it holds the cost at GH₵66,000 throughout. It leaves out transport, market fees and any overheads, so treat the results as a starting point.
| Scenario | Birds sold | Price per live bird | Revenue | Result against GH₵66,000 cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet month, 4% mortality, lower price | 960 | GH₵75 | GH₵72,000 | +GH₵6,000 |
| Quiet month, 4% mortality, higher price | 960 | GH₵80 | GH₵76,800 | +GH₵10,800 |
| Festive peak, 4% mortality | 960 | GH₵100 | GH₵96,000 | +GH₵30,000 |
| Quiet month, 20% mortality | 800 | GH₵75 | GH₵60,000 | −GH₵6,000 |
| Festive peak, 20% mortality | 800 | GH₵100 | GH₵80,000 | +GH₵14,000 |
Reading the first row takes one line of arithmetic. Nine hundred and sixty birds at GH₵75 comes to GH₵72,000, and taking away the GH₵66,000 cost leaves GH₵6,000. Change the price to a festive GH₵100 and the same 960 birds bring in GH₵96,000, which leaves GH₵30,000. The birds did not change. Only the calendar did.
The sum above uses direct cost only. The break-even we quote for a typical batch, GH₵70 to GH₵81 per bird sold, is a stricter test, because it is meant to carry more of the running cost of a house than the direct sum does. A quiet-month sale can clear GH₵66,000 and still fall short of that break-even.
That is why the typical profit we quote, GH₵12 to GH₵20 per bird sold in a normal cycle, sits between a quiet sale and a festive one. A batch sold entirely in quiet months does not reach it, and a batch that loses a fifth of its birds needs a festive price just to stay level.
Check your own batch before you commit
Your prices and losses will differ from ours. The calculator on the partner page lets you change the assumptions and see how the result moves, which is a better use of your time than any single headline figure. Try a quiet month and a festive month side by side.
The mortality line
Losses are where a batch quietly goes wrong. A well-managed house usually loses 3% to 5% of its birds. Poor management or disease can push that to 10% to 20%, and at the top of that range the losses can erase the profit of the whole cycle.
Every bird that dies has already been fed, brooded and vaccinated, and it never reaches the scale. On a 1,000-bird batch, each percentage point of mortality removes 10 birds from the sale. At quiet-month prices, that is roughly GH₵750 to GH₵800 of revenue lost for every point. Losses also build over weeks rather than arriving in one bad morning, which is why weekly weights and mortality counts matter more than the final sale figure.
A well-run house keeps the early signs in view. Water and feed are checked every day, litter is kept dry, ventilation is adjusted when the heat rises, and vaccines go in on schedule. When the daily mortality count starts to climb, the question is what changed in the last three days, not what the final number will be.
A festive price cannot rescue a bad house
Peak prices are the reason many batches look profitable on paper. They do not protect a batch that loses a fifth of its birds to a preventable disease. If someone shows you only the festive price, ask what the same batch makes at 20% losses. If they cannot answer clearly, you have learned something important about them.
What this means for a first batch
A first batch should be judged on whether it survives a bad outcome, not on whether it clears a good one. Work out the quiet-month result first. If that result is negative, the plan depends on luck, and you should change the plan or the size before the chicks arrive.
Partners can start from 500 birds, with 1,000 recommended. Larger batches spread the fixed effort of running a house over more birds, but they also put more capital at risk on placement day. A smaller batch carries less absolute risk, though the fixed effort of the house is spread over fewer birds. Choose the size where a loss would hurt without finishing you, then let the first batch teach you the cycle.
A smaller batch, the same arithmetic
The sums scale in a straight line, which makes a 500-bird batch easy to check. Chicks come to about GH₵10,000, feed to roughly GH₵16,800 to GH₵17,200, and the other costs to about GH₵6,000. That is around GH₵32,800 to GH₵33,200 in total, and it is the same per-bird story at half the size.
Run the quiet-month case on that smaller batch and 480 birds sold at GH₵75 bring in GH₵36,000, a margin of roughly GH₵3,000 before the stricter break-even is applied. The margin is smaller in cedis, but the lesson does not change. A quiet sale is thin at any size, and a festive sale is where the cycle earns its keep.
Reading the return honestly
A 1,000-bird batch can return a useful profit in a normal cycle. It can also return very little, or a loss, when the sale lands in a quiet month or the losses run high. The honest answer to what it returns is a range, and the range moves with those two things.
Our cash flow and break-even guide works the same arithmetic across a full cycle, including the weeks when money goes out before any comes back. Read it alongside the partner terms, which set out how capital and profit are returned, in writing, before placement.
Make one habit out of this article: before any batch, write down the quiet-month price, the losses you expect and the day the cash runs short. Once those three numbers sit in front of you, the batch is worth discussing if it still looks sensible. A batch that only works on the festive price is one to wait on.
Check the batch plan Is broiler farming profitable in Ghana?
