Feeding after dark sounds like extra work, and it is, but in hot spells it can change how much the flock eats. Here is how to test it on your farm.
Halaal Farms Ghana team18 April 2026 · 14 min read
The lamp goes on at six, the fans are running, and the house still holds the heat of the afternoon. That is the moment many keepers in Kasoa start asking whether the last feed of the day should wait until dark. Someone at the feed shop has mentioned it. A post online has promised more weight. Most of the people asking have not measured a single thing on their own farm.
This guide is for the keeper who wants to know whether a trip to the house after dark earns its keep. We hatch and box chicks at our place in Opeikuma, Kasoa, and send them to all 16 regions, so our customers run very different houses: open-sided sheds near the road, closed houses with fans, backyard pens with one lamp hung from a nail. The answer changes from one to the next. The method below finds your answer without guessing.
Night feeding has a reputation it does not always deserve. It can help. It can also cost you feed, time and sleep, and it will not fix a house that traps heat. Treat it as one tool among several, and test it before you commit the whole flock to it.
A chicken keeps its body temperature inside a narrow range, and it works at that all day. When the house runs hot, the bird does two things to cope. It breathes faster and pants, and it eats less. Digesting a meal produces heat of its own, so a bird that is already overheated has good reason to leave the trough alone.
The result is easy to see if you look for it. At midday the flock stands near the drinkers with their wings held a little away from the body. They crowd the shaded corners, or they crouch in the shavings with their beaks open. The feeder is still half full at two in the afternoon, and the crop of the bird you catch feels light.
That is why the hottest hours are often the hours when intake drops. If the trough is full at dawn and still full at noon, the flock is not eating when the heat is on. Night feeding is an attempt to move some of the day's feed into the cooler hours, when the birds are more willing to eat.
Be honest about what this does and does not fix. Feeding at night does not cool the house. A shed with a tin roof, no airflow and no shade stays hot after dark as well, only a little less so. Shade, airflow and clean water do far more for a hot flock than any change in feeding time. Feed timing belongs to the hot season, and it works best once the house is already set up well.
Night feeding usually means one of three things, and they are not the same job.
The first is a top-up. The feeder is filled once the sun is down, so that the birds find a full trough when they settle. This is the simplest option and the one most keepers should try first. It needs a torch, a bucket and about as long as it takes to walk the house.
A split ration is the second option. The bigger share of the day's feed goes out in the late afternoon, and a smaller share waits for first light. The total stays the same and only the timing changes. This option does not add feed by itself, which makes it the easiest to test without taking a cost risk.
Last comes the lamp-timed feed. The lights stay on for a while after dark, and the birds are encouraged to eat before they roost. This carries the highest running cost and gives the flock the most room to eat more than it needs.
Each of the three costs something. A top-up means someone has to go into the house after dark, which is often when the power is off and the torch is the only light. Lamps cost electricity, and on a farm that runs a generator it costs fuel. A split ration costs nothing extra in feed, but it needs a second visit and a clear record of what went out and when.
Feed put out late sits in the trough overnight. In a house with open bags, spilled feed or damp corners, that is an invitation to rats, and to moisture getting into the mash. Keep the night feed in covered bins, and fill the trough only with what the flock will clear. A tray left full in a wet house can turn sour by morning. A flock that eats mouldy mash pays for it in the weeks after, through slower growth and loose droppings.
The price of the feed is the number to start with. A 50 kg bag of poultry feed is broadly GH₵400 to GH₵470, depending on the brand and the season. That works out to between GH₵8.00 and GH₵9.40 for each kilogram. Confirm today's price with your feed seller, because it moves, and use the bag price from the week you actually buy.
Now take a flock of 100 broilers. A broiler eats about 4.2 kg of feed from chick to market, so the flock eats about 420 kg in total. At the bag prices above, that is about GH₵3,360 to GH₵3,948 of feed for one batch. Feed is more than half the cost of a broiler flock, so a small change in how much the birds eat is worth looking at closely.
The table shows what a little extra feed does to that bill. The two extra-feed rows are examples. They are not results from any farm, and nobody has measured them on yours yet. They show the size of the sum you would be testing.
| Item for 100 broilers | Basis | At GH₵8.00 per kg | At GH₵9.40 per kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed to market, normal flock | 420 kg (4.2 kg per bird) | GH₵3,360 | GH₵3,948 |
| Extra night feed, 0.2 kg per bird | 20 kg, illustrative only | GH₵160 | GH₵188 |
| Extra night feed, 0.4 kg per bird | 40 kg, illustrative only | GH₵320 | GH₵376 |
Read the two extra-feed rows with care. Extra feed only pays if the birds turn it into weight, sooner or with fewer losses. If 20 kg of extra feed in a batch is the difference between a flock that sells a few days earlier and one that does not, that is money in your favour. If the same 20 kg sits in the trough and goes off, you have spent GH₵160 to GH₵188 for nothing.
Then add what the night work costs you. The lamp's electricity or fuel is your figure, and so is the value of an hour of your evening. A keeper who does the top-up alone at dusk for six weeks has given up a good deal of time. Put a number on it. If the sum is still in your favour, the decision is easy. If it is not, you already have your answer.
The honest answer comes from a trial, and a trial is cheap if you plan it. Split one batch into two pens of equal size, using the same breed and chicks from the same box. In one pen feed the normal way. In the other, add the night feed you are considering. Keep everything else the same: the same water, the same litter, the same house and the same person doing the morning check.
Record the following for each pen, every day:
Once a week, weigh ten birds from each pen, chosen at random rather than the biggest birds or the ones nearest the door. Use the same scale both times. A kitchen scale will do if it is steady and you weigh the same way each week. The numbers are for comparing your two pens, not for certificates.
At market, compare three figures for each pen: the average live weight, the feed used per bird, and the cost per kilogram of live bird. To get cost per kilogram, divide the total feed cost for the pen by the total live weight you sold. The chicks cost the same in both pens, so leave them out of the comparison.
The pen with the lower cost per kilogram is the better pen, even if it ate more feed, as long as it reached the weight you sell at. A pen that ate more and sold heavier can still lose money if the extra feed bought nothing but a bigger bill.
A two-pen trial costs some time and some extra feed. It answers the question for your house, your breed and your weather. That is worth more than any figure a neighbour gives you, or any figure in this article.
There are situations where night feeding is a poor use of money and effort, however well it worked on someone else's farm.
If two or more of those describe your farm, put the money into the house and the water before you buy a lamp.
On many farms the lights are not reliable after dark. A lamp that fails halfway through feed time leaves the flock in the dark with a half-eaten trough and no way to tell what they ate.
If you run night feeding on a lamp, test the lamp before the first night. Turn it on, time how long it runs, and see whether the birds find the trough on their own in the dim light. A bright lamp can make birds nervous and bunched up in one corner. A dim one may not be enough for them to find the feed. Set it at a level where you can see the whole house and the birds can see the feeder.
Keep a torch in the house, and a spare light on a hook or shelf. If you rely on a generator, fill it before the evening starts, not during feed time. Write down the hours it runs. That record is worth far more than memory in a hot week, when the tiredness of the day makes everything blur together.
Ghana does not have one kind of weather all year, and the answer changes with it. The heat before the rains is the time most keepers have in mind when they talk about night feeding. The dusty months bring a different problem. Nights can turn cool, and a flock that was hot at noon may be cold by four in the morning. A cold flock may eat more in the early hours because it is burning energy to keep warm.
So night feeding is a tool for the hot season, not a cure for every season. Run the trial in the weather you actually want to fix. A trial run in a cool month will tell you very little about the hot one, and a trial run in a hot month will not tell you how the flock copes with a cold snap.
Write the weather into your records, too. Note the hot days, the cool nights, the power cuts and any day the birds went quiet for no reason you could see. When you sit down with the figures at the end of the batch, those notes will explain the numbers better than the numbers can explain themselves.
If the trial says night feeding pays, keep the routine simple enough that it survives a long, tiring week. Put out a measured ration in the late afternoon, once the worst of the heat has passed. Check the trough before you leave the house. Cover the bins, and keep the feed off the wet floor. If you can, do the top-up at first light instead of after dark, because the morning check also tells you how much the flock actually ate overnight.
Plan for the rainy spells as well. A late top-up in a damp house is a different job from one in the dry heat, and the same routine that works in March may not work in August. If the birds stop eating after dark, move the feed back to the day and look at the house again before you blame the feed.
No. It depends on the house, the weather and how the birds respond. Only a trial on your own pens will show you that. Anyone who gives you a fixed percentage without a trial on your farm is guessing.
Layers are a different job. Changing feed times on a laying flock can shift laying patterns, so change the routine slowly, watch the egg count and talk to your vet before you make a big change. Do not copy a broiler routine onto a laying house.
Not always. Many keepers only need to top up the feeder at dusk. A lamp helps if the birds need light to find the feed. Its electricity or fuel cost belongs in your trial, so do not leave it out of the sum.
Use the price on your own bag or the price your seller quotes that week. The GH₵400 to GH₵470 range is for a 50 kg bag and it moves with brand and season, so confirm it before you work out the figures.
Once you know how your house handles the heat, the next step is the batch itself. Our chicks come from the hatchery at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and you can choose the breed that suits your plan. If you want a feel for the cost side before you decide, read our guide to choosing mash, crumble or pellet, or working out how much feed 100 broilers need. For the chick side of the sum, see our broiler chicks and current prices.
When you are ready, send the order form on this site or call us on 024 915 1503. Nothing is paid on the website. We confirm the price, the hatch date and the delivery cost with you first, and you pay by cash, mobile money or bank transfer once those three things are clear. Chicks dead on arrival are replaced free in the next hatch. The minimum order is one box of 50 chicks.
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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