Rearing Cockerels for the Festive Market

At our price check on 2 October 2026, white cockerel chicks started from GH₵ 3 each and broiler chicks from GH₵ 20. A farmer looking at those two numbers can stock six cockerels for the price of one broiler, and many do exactly that in July with Christmas in mind. The surprise comes in October, when 300 half-grown cocks are eating three bags of feed a week and the sale is still two months away. Cockerels can pay well at festive time, but only for the farmer who has done the feed sum first and counted the weeks correctly.

What you are buying when you buy "white cockerels"

Hatcheries that produce layer chicks hatch males and females in roughly equal numbers. Egg farmers want only the females, so the chicks are sexed at day-old and the males are sold separately at a low price. In the brown-egg hybrids common in Ghana, the female chicks hatch brown and the males hatch pale yellow, which is how they are sorted, and those males feather out mostly white. That is the "white cockerel" of the Ghanaian market. Our article on how chicks are sexed explains the method.

The important point is the genetics. These birds come from lines selected for decades to lay eggs on as little feed as possible. Nothing in their breeding pushes them to put on meat. They take three to four times as long as a broiler to reach 2 kg, carry a narrow breast and long legs, and stay lean. In return they are hardy, active, rarely suffer the leg and heart problems of broilers, and produce firm, tasty meat that many Ghanaians rank close to local fowl.

Typical live weights on full feed look like this. Males of brown-egg strains sit towards the top of each range and males of white-egg strains towards the bottom.

Read the last column carefully. Between week 20 and week 24 the bird gains perhaps 300 to 400 grams and eats about 3 kg of feed to do it.

The sum: a cheap chick with a long feed bill

Here is the cost of one finished cockerel, worked with example prices. Feed is priced at an example GH₵ 400 per 50 kg bag, which is GH₵ 8 per kilo. Put your own figures in each line.

Three things stand out.

The chick is almost irrelevant. At GH₵ 3 it is under five per cent of the cost. Feed is well over 80 per cent. A farmer who chooses cockerels "because the chicks are cheap" has chosen on the wrong line of the table.

The cockerel eats about twice what a broiler eats. A broiler reaches 2.5 kg on roughly 4.5 to 5 kg of feed. The cockerel takes 9 kg to reach 2 kg. Sold by the kilo against broiler meat, it cannot compete.

The money is tied up for five months. You buy feed every week from July and see no income until December. Count that cash before you stock. Running out of feed money in October is the usual way a cockerel batch fails: the ration is cut, growth stops, and the birds reach Christmas at 1.4 kg.

To see how many birds your budget can carry, multiply the number you want by the feed per bird and the price per kilo. For 200 birds on full feed at the example price, that is 200 x 9 kg x GH₵ 8 = GH₵ 14,400 of feed alone. The poultry profit calculator lets you test other prices and flock sizes.

When cockerels make sense, and when they do not

Given that sum, the cockerel pays under particular conditions.

• Your buyers pay per bird, for a cock. At Christmas, Easter and Eid, households want a live, mature cock for the pot and for gifts. In that trade the bird is priced by its look and its feel in the hand, not by a scale, and a firm five-month cock can fetch more than a heavier broiler. Ask two or three traders now what they paid last December for a good white cock, and compare that with your cost per bird sold.
• You can replace bought feed. If you have space for a run, access to cheap bran, brewery or milling by-products, market greens or kitchen waste, the bought-feed line falls and the margin opens.
• You want low risk more than fast turnover. Cockerels tolerate heat, rough handling and a missed sale date far better than broilers. A cockerel held two extra weeks eats feed. A broiler held two extra weeks may die.

They do not make sense if you plan to sell dressed birds by weight to cold stores or caterers, if you have no festive outlet, or if you cannot fund five months of feed. For a coloured bird that finishes in three to four months, look at Sasso, Kuroiler and Noiler on our coloured chicks page.

Counting back from Christmas and Easter

Festive demand is short. Most Christmas cocks change hands in the two weeks before 25 December, with a second, smaller wave before New Year. A bird that is ready on 5 January has missed the price. So fix the sale week first and count backwards.

As a worked example, Easter Sunday in 2027 falls on 28 March. Selling starts around 14 March. Twenty weeks before that is 25 October 2026, so chicks for an Easter 2027 batch on full feed need to be in the brooder in the last week of October or the first days of November, and three or four weeks earlier than that if you intend to feed a reduced ration.

Two seasonal notes. Chicks stocked in July and August in the south are brooded in the coolest, cloudiest weeks of the year, and in the north at the height of the rains, so they need more heat and drier litter than a March batch. Chicks stocked in late October or November for Easter meet the first harmattan nights at two to four weeks old, when a cold draught does most damage. Our guide to brooding in the rainy season and the harmattan covers both. Hatcheries are also busiest before the festive stocking dates, so book early. The general method for every type of bird is in when to order chicks for Christmas, Easter and Eid.

Feeding in three phases

Phase 1, weeks 0 to 8: build the frame

Feed chick mash or chick starter freely. A cockerel eats only about 2 kg in these eight weeks, less than a quarter of its lifetime feed, so this is the wrong place to save. Bone, gut and immunity are built now. A bird underfed at this stage stays short and narrow, and no amount of finishing in November puts that frame back.

Phase 2, weeks 9 to 16: the cheap middle

Switch to grower mash. This is where a careful farmer cuts cost without harming the bird, because the cockerel is growing slowly anyway and can use coarser feed.

• Give the grower mash as two measured meals, morning and late afternoon, sized so the troughs are empty within about an hour.
• Let the birds into a fenced run between meals if you have one. They will take grass, weeds and insects.
• Add bulky, cheap feeds: maize bran, wheat bran, palm kernel cake, chopped greens. Keep these additions to about a quarter of the total unless you also add a protein source, or the birds will fill up without growing.
• Provide enough feeder space for every bird to eat at once. With measured meals, a flock that has to queue ends up uneven: big bullies and thin stragglers.

Weigh ten birds every two weeks. If the average at 16 weeks is below about 1.4 kg, you have cut too far.

Phase 3, the last four weeks: finish

Buyers lift a cock and press the breast and thighs. A lean frame with no flesh on it sells badly however old the bird is. For the final month, bring the bought feed back to full quantity and raise the energy: add cracked maize at about a fifth of the ration, or move to a finisher feed if the price difference is small. The birds put on flesh and a little fat, the feathers gain shine and the comb brightens.

Managing a house full of males

A broiler flock is sold before the birds mature. A cockerel flock is not, and from about 10 to 14 weeks you are keeping a few hundred young cocks who have started to compete. Combs redden, crowing starts and sparring follows. Some of this is normal and settles into a pecking order. It becomes a problem when birds are crowded, bored or mixed.

• Space. From 12 weeks allow about one square metre for every five or six birds indoors, and add a run if you can. Crowding is the first cause of fighting.
• One group, start to finish. Rear the batch together from day-old. Do not add birds bought later or return unsold birds from the market. Strangers are attacked, and they bring disease.
• Perches. Poles 40 to 60 cm off the floor give weaker birds somewhere to go and keep breast feathers off the litter.
• Several feeding points. Spread feeders and drinkers along the house so one dominant bird cannot guard them all.
• Something to do. Hang bunches of greens at head height. A handful of grain scattered in clean litter in the afternoon keeps birds scratching instead of sparring.
• Remove the wounded. A bleeding comb draws every beak in the house. Take the bird out until it heals, and act the same day if you see birds pecking at each other's backs or vents.

Then there is the noise. Two hundred cocks crowing from four in the morning is a real nuisance in a residential area and a common cause of complaints. If you rear at home, speak to your neighbours before you stock, and think about whether the site suits a five-month male flock at all.

Vaccines and parasites over five months

A broiler programme stops at about four weeks because the bird is sold at six. A cockerel lives three or four times as long, and its protection has to last. A typical programme includes Gumboro and Newcastle vaccines in the first month, a fowl pox vaccination at around six to eight weeks, and Newcastle boosters after that. Your vet or the district veterinary office sets the actual dates and products, and common examples are set out in our vaccination schedules for Ghana. Chicks from Halaal Farms are vaccinated at the hatchery before they leave. Ask us what your batch has had so your vet can continue from there.

Fowl pox deserves attention in a festive flock. The wart-like scabs form on the comb, wattles and face, which is exactly where a buyer looks first. A bird with a scabbed comb is marked down or refused.

Birds that use a run pick up worms. The sign is a good appetite with poor weight gain. Ask your vet about deworming during the grower phase and again before finishing, and respect any withdrawal period before sale. Coccidiosis is most likely between three and eight weeks, on wet litter. Keep the area around the drinkers dry.

What the live-bird buyer looks at

Very few festive cocks are sold on a scale. The buyer, whether a market trader or a householder at your gate, makes a judgement in about ten seconds. Know what goes into it.

• Comb and wattles. Large, bright red and unmarked. This is the sign of a mature, healthy cock. A small pale comb says "too young" even on a heavy bird, which is one reason age matters as much as weight.
• Height and stance. An upright bird standing tall on straight legs looks bigger than it weighs.
• Plumage. Full, clean and unbroken, with long tail feathers. White feathers show every stain. In the last month keep litter dry, top it up with fresh shavings and fix leaking drinkers. Birds dust-bathing in red laterite soil turn pink-brown and look neglected.
• Weight in the hand. The buyer lifts the bird and feels the breast on either side of the keel bone and the thickness of the thigh. This is what your finishing month is for.
• Liveliness. A cock that struggles and calls is healthy. A quiet, drooping bird is suspected of being sick.
• Colour. Some customers ask specifically for a white fowl, including for customary purposes. Others prefer a coloured cock that looks like a local bird. Find out which your market wants before you choose between white cockerels and coloured breeds.

Selling in drafts, and what to do with leftovers

Do not plan to sell the whole house on one day. Start taking orders in November from the people most likely to buy in numbers: market traders, office and staff welfare groups, churches and mosques, people who make up Christmas hampers. Take a deposit by mobile money for any order you hold.

From early December, sort the flock by size. Sell the heaviest, best-looking birds first while prices are still rising, and give the smaller ones two more weeks on full feed. Move birds at dawn in ventilated crates, with water available up to loading. The different outlets are compared in our guide to finding buyers for broilers and eggs, and most of it applies to cocks as well.

Decide in advance what happens to birds unsold by New Year. Demand and price fall at once, while each bird goes on eating over 100 grams a day. Carrying leftovers to Easter means roughly three more months of feed for almost no extra weight, which rarely pays. Selling at a lower price in the first week of January, or dressing and freezing the birds if you have reliable cold storage, usually costs less than feeding them.

Booking chicks for a festive batch

Halaal Farms Ghana supplies white cockerel chicks from Opeikuma, Kasoa, to all 16 regions. The minimum order is one box of 50. Starting prices are on the day-old chick price list, and they change, so the price, hatch date and delivery cost are confirmed before you pay. Send the order form or call 024 915 1503 with your sale week and the number of birds your feed budget can carry, and we will help you work back to the right hatch date.

Questions farmers ask

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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