Picture a Thursday report. The photos look clean, the weights are close to plan and the feed used matches what the budget expected. Then the mortality line shows eleven birds lost since the last report, and a question starts to form: what does this do to my money?
That is the question this article answers. The short version is that mortality hits revenue, not the costs you have already paid. The longer version depends on how many birds you lose, when you lose them and what the market pays on the day. Each of those can be worked through in cedis, and it is worth doing before you put money into a batch rather than after the first bad week.
Where a dead bird shows up in the sum
Take a single bird that dies in its second week. Its GH₵20 chick has been paid for, and it has eaten feed for two weeks. None of that comes back. The bird also never reaches the buyer, so the GH₵85 it might have fetched is gone. Death costs you twice: once in inputs already spent, and once in revenue that never arrives.
This is why mortality is counted from placement, and why the running total appears on every Thursday report. The cost side of the budget stays where it was set. The sale side shrinks with every bird that does not reach market. In the figures below we hold the cost at GH₵66,440, which assumes all 1,000 chicks were bought and fed. Dead birds eat less than live ones, so the real feed bill would be a little lower. Holding the higher figure is the cautious choice, because it makes the profit look smaller, not larger.
Each extra bird lost at a GH₵85 sale price takes GH₵85 off the revenue, so ten more deaths take GH₵850 out of the batch. Eleven birds in one week looks small against 1,000. Keep the same pace for six weeks and you have lost 66 birds, or 6.6% of the house. That is above the well-managed band, and it is the point where the profit starts to thin.
Mortality bands and what they do to a batch
Our standard for a well-run house is mortality of 3% to 5% across the cycle. On 1,000 birds that is 30 to 50 birds. When poor management or disease pushes losses to 10% to 20%, the batch loses 100 to 200 birds, and the arithmetic changes quickly.
The table runs one batch through five mortality levels at a between-seasons price of GH₵85. Cost stays at GH₵66,440 in every row.
| Cumulative mortality | Birds sold | Revenue at GH₵85 | Profit before split |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3% | 970 | GH₵82,450 | GH₵16,010 |
| 5% | 950 | GH₵80,750 | GH₵14,310 |
| 10% | 900 | GH₵76,500 | GH₵10,060 |
| 15% | 850 | GH₵72,250 | GH₵5,810 |
| 20% | 800 | GH₵68,000 | GH₵1,560 |
At 3% the batch clears its cost by GH₵16,010 before any split. At 20%, the same batch clears it by only GH₵1,560. Nothing about the birds changed between those rows except how many made it to market. Then drop the sale price to the quiet GH₵75, and the 20% row turns negative. Eight hundred birds at GH₵75 bring in GH₵60,000, which is GH₵6,440 short of cost.
Be wary of any promise that losses will not touch you
A profit-share batch can be hit by disease, poor management or a weak market, and it can finish below cost. Ghana's Securities and Exchange Commission has warned against schemes that promise fixed returns. An offer that says mortality will not affect your money, or that will not show you its mortality figures, deserves a hard look before any transfer.
Timing changes the cost of a loss
When a bird dies matters as much as how many die. A bird lost in the first few days has cost you its chick price and very little feed. A bird lost in week six has eaten most of the feed it would have needed to reach market, so the money already sunk into it is at its heaviest. Early losses are mostly a cost of the chick. Late losses are a cost of the chick, the feed and all the brooding and labour up to that point.
That is why a disease event close to the sale hurts more than the same count of deaths at placement, and why a farm should report a spike quickly. In the final weeks, the mortality line tells you how many birds are still left to sell, and that number is the one the sale depends on.
Working one loss case through
Here is one case in full. A 1,000-bird batch loses 100 birds to disease in the fifth week, a 10% outcome. The farm is left with 900 birds for sale. At a between-seasons price of GH₵85, that is GH₵76,500 of revenue. The cost is still GH₵66,440, because the chicks and feed were bought before the losses happened, so the profit before split is GH₵10,060.
Now run the same case at a quiet price. Nine hundred birds at GH₵75 bring in GH₵67,500, which leaves GH₵1,060 above cost. A loss and a weak market together have taken almost all of the profit. Neither event on its own would necessarily have done that, which is why the two plans should be tested side by side rather than one at a time.
Notice what that case does not need. It does not need a catastrophe, only an ordinary bad stretch and a soft market in the same cycle. That is the realistic shape of most setbacks in poultry, so planning should start from the ordinary bad case rather than the disaster that makes the headlines.
If you are comparing two offers, put the same mortality line into both. An offer that shows only its 3% case and leaves out the 10% case is answering a different question from the one you are asking.
What the capital covers when a batch goes wrong
In a normal batch the capital comes back first, and the profit is split after it. In a bad batch there may be less to return than was put in. Nothing in a profit-share agreement turns a loss into a return, and nothing on our site should make you think otherwise. What matters is what the written agreement says about a shortfall: how it is measured, who carries it, and how the payout is worked out when the sale does not cover the cost.
Ask the farm to show you that clause before placement, in writing. If the answer is vague, that is a reason to wait. A good farm should expect the question and answer it without fuss. The cash side of a batch, including how break-even moves as mortality rises, is set out in our guide to poultry cash flow and break-even in Ghana, and it is worth reading alongside the table above.
Put a loss case into the batch plan
The batch partner page lets you set mortality at 3% and again at 20%, then watch the profit line move. Run both before you decide, and ask the farm to explain any figure that surprises you.
How reporting catches a slow loss early
The weekly report is the main defence against a slow loss. A mortality line that climbs from two birds in one week to nine in the next tells you something before the final sale does. Photos show whether the birds look well. The weight sample shows whether growth is on pace. Feed figures show whether the birds are eating what the plan expects. A bad week usually shows up on more than one line, so read the lines together rather than one at a time.
Disease needs a faster response than a routine report. Our chicks are vaccinated at day old against Marek's disease, and further vaccines against Newcastle and Gumboro are set for each batch. Vaccination lowers the risk. It does not remove it. A good partner agreement should say how the farm reports a disease event as it happens, rather than leaving it to the next Thursday update. Our chicks come from the hatchery in Kasoa, which hatches every Thursday at 7am with a 98% average hatch rate.
Keep a running count of cumulative deaths against the 3% to 5% band, rather than judging a batch by a single bad Thursday. Equally, do not excuse a line that keeps climbing week after week. The number that matters is where the total is heading, and that is only visible if you keep the count yourself.
The first report after placement deserves more attention than its size suggests. It is the first chance to compare the number of birds in the house with the number on the placement sheet. If the two do not match, the gap belongs in the report, and it should be explained in plain figures.
Look at the first few weeks of mortality with the same care. Early deaths often need the most explanation, because they point to the chicks, the house or the brooding rather than to the market. A small early count that is explained is a better sign than a clean-looking report with no figures attached.
Three questions to put in writing
Before placement, three questions are worth putting in writing. First, what mortality does the budget assume, and what is the farm's record on batches that finished outside the well-managed band? Second, if a disease event happens between Thursdays, how and when will the partner hear about it? Third, when sales fall short of the capital, what does the agreement say happens to the difference, and who carries it?
A farm that answers all three in plain words has done the work. One that answers with general reassurance has given you something you cannot check, which is close to no answer at all.
What to settle before the chicks arrive
Dead birds are not a reason to avoid poultry, and they are not a reason to ignore the risk either. They are a reason to read the mortality assumptions, the shortfall clause and the reporting schedule before you pay. A farm that is open about its losses is a better partner than one that only talks about its sales.
Read the terms, run the plan with a bad case, and only then decide how much you can afford to have sitting in a house for eight weeks.
