Dumsor will come. What saves your chicks is the backup you tested in daylight and the night routine you can follow half asleep.
Halaal Farms Ghana team7 September 2026 · 11 min read
Dumsor does not check the calendar. The lights go at nine, the fan stops mid-turn, and twenty minutes later the bulb over your brooder is as cold as the concrete under it. Most growers who lose a batch to a power cut do not lose it in that first half hour. They lose it around three in the morning, when the house has cooled, the chicks have started to crowd into one corner, and nobody is awake to see it happening.
What saves the batch happens before the outage. By the time the lights go, your choices are already made, and what is left is to follow the routine you set up while the sun was still up. Our chicks leave the hatchery in Opeikuma in ventilated boxes of 50, and they go out to all 16 regions. A grower in Tamale and a grower in Kasoa face the same problem with different generators, different gas suppliers and different nights. The ones who come through a cut well share one habit. Their backup has been tested.
A young chick cannot hold its own body heat yet. Its down is thin and its feathers are not in, so it leans on the heat source above it and on the warmth of the chicks around it. When the heat drops, the first thing you see is not a dead bird. It is a pile. The chicks in the middle of the heap can be smothered, and the ones on the outside chill and fall behind. You can lose a surprising number to crowding before anyone notices the floor.
Timing matters too. A cut at nine in the evening during the rainy season in Kasoa is uncomfortable. The same cut in the harmattan months, when nights turn cold and dusty, is much harder on a house that was only just warm enough, and the northern regions feel it hardest. Plan for the worst month you will raise in, not the easiest one.
Then there is the money, which makes a backup easier to justify. A broiler chick from our current list starts at GH₵20 each, which is GH₵1,000 for a box of fifty. A layer from the Hy-Line Brown line starts at GH₵23 each. One bad night that takes a box costs you a thousand cedis before you have bought a single bag of feed. Set that against the price of a gas cylinder, a battery lamp or a charcoal brazier, and the decision is usually quick. Get your own quotes, though, because local prices vary from town to town.
Your backup plan depends on what is heating the house. Most growers use one of three setups, and each one behaves differently when the grid drops.
Whichever one you run, find its weak point while it is still light. Work out how many hours a full gas cylinder lasts at the setting you really use, not the setting you hoped for. Light the charcoal brooder once in daylight to see how it draws. Find the torch, check the batteries, and keep them in the same place every night so you never have to search for them in the dark.
Backup heat costs money to run, so it makes sense to waste as little of it as you can. Most houses lose their warmth through gaps at the bottom of the walls, through a door that does not close, and through open windows on the side the wind comes from. Close those before dark. A jute sack or a piece of old tarpaulin hung on the windward side helps more than people expect.
Do not seal the house so tightly that the air goes stale, though. Chicks breathe in the same air you do, and a shut house with a gas burner or a charcoal fire running inside it can turn dangerous quickly. Leave the vents open at the top, away from the chicks, and keep the litter dry so that it does not add damp and ammonia to the cold. A dry house holds heat better than a damp one, and it is easier on the lungs.
The routine has to be short enough to remember at two in the morning with a torch in your mouth. A routine that works in most houses goes like this:
The alarm matters more than the lamp. Most of the trouble happens in the hours between checks, when a house cools quietly and nobody is standing in it.
The table uses the from-prices on our current list, per bird and per box of fifty. It also shows an illustrative loss of five chicks, which is 10 per cent of a box. That 10 per cent is a round number for working out the sums, not a figure we are claiming for any house. Prices move with the season and with the import, so confirm today's figure before you budget for a restock.
| Breed | Type | From, each | Box of 50, from | Five chicks lost (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ross 308 / Cobb 500 | Broiler, imported | GH₵20 | GH₵1,000 | GH₵100 |
| Hy-Line Brown | Layer, imported | GH₵23 | GH₵1,150 | GH₵115 |
| Sasso | Dual purpose, local hatch | GH₵13 | GH₵650 | GH₵65 |
| Kuroiler / Noiler | Dual purpose, local hatch | GH₵11 | GH₵550 | GH₵55 |
| Plymouth / Barred Rock | Local hatch | GH₵7 | GH₵350 | GH₵35 |
Read the last column as a picture of how fast a small loss adds up. Five chicks cost you between thirty-five and one hundred and fifteen cedis, and a bad night can take far more than five. The feed you planned to put in after brooding, the days you set aside for the flock, and the buyers who were waiting for the birds all go with them.
Three things are worth budgeting for before you buy extra chicks:
Generators and inverters can carry lights and a fan, and some growers run a small one for the brooder itself. Ask a local dealer or an electrician what your house can take, and do not guess the load. Ask for a written quote for each option. Prices for this kind of equipment change faster than the chick list does.
Do not relax the moment the lights return. A sudden surge of heat can push the house too warm, and chicks that spent the night crowded are often tired and thirsty. Check the drinkers first, then the temperature at chick height, then the spread of the birds. Give the house about an hour to settle before you go back to bed.
Write down the time and length of the cut, the heat source you used, and how the chicks looked at the next check. After a few cuts you will see patterns: the same hour most nights, or the same corner that always chills first. That record is worth more than one night's luck.
Keep an eye on the mortality figure too. Well-managed flocks usually run around 3 to 5 per cent mortality over a grow-out, and poor management can push losses to 10 to 20 per cent. If a power cut moves you past the top of that range, the routine needs work, not just the lamp.
It depends on the lamp and on how many chicks are under it. A small lamp will not warm a whole house on its own. Run it for a full night on a test before you depend on it, and watch the chicks rather than trusting what the box says.
Only with proper ventilation, and with a cylinder and fittings that someone who knows gas has checked. Keep the burner clear of litter and dust, never leave a lit burner unattended in a closed house, and shut the gas off at the cylinder when you are finished.
Warm them gradually under the heat source rather than placing them right next to a hot lamp. Offer fresh water at room temperature and check the drinkers. If losses keep coming after the house is warm again, call your vet the same day.
Dead-on-arrival chicks are replaced free in the next hatch. Tell us at delivery so the replacement can be arranged properly.
An order starts with a message, not with money. Send the form on this site or call 024 915 1503. Before you pay anything, we confirm the price, the hatch date and the delivery cost, and you can pay by cash, mobile money or bank transfer. If you are still choosing a heat source, read bulb, gas or charcoal brooding and why the night checks matter most. Our broiler day-old chicks page lists the breeds and box sizes, and the price page shows the from-prices you should still confirm with us.
Written by the Halaal Farms Ghana team. We hatch and import day-old chicks at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and deliver to all 16 regions. This article is general guidance for farmers. For diagnosis and treatment of sick birds, speak to a vet or your district veterinary office.
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