Plan about 420 kg for 100 birds at 4.2 kg each, then add the bags you lose to spillage, heat and the birds that do not make it.
Halaal Farms Ghana team12 September 2026 · 11 min read
Start with one number. A broiler eats about 4.2 kilograms of feed from the day it arrives until the day it goes to market. Everything else in this article is arithmetic built on that figure, so it is worth understanding before you buy a single bag.
That figure belongs to a well-run flock over the six to seven weeks most broilers take to reach market. It is a planning figure, not a promise. Your house, your feeder habits and the breed you chose will move it a little either way. The first batch you record will tell you more than any table, including ours.
Notice what the number leaves out. It does not include the birds you lose, and it does not include the feed scratched out of the feeder and trodden into the litter. In a busy house that spillage adds up faster than most people expect. Those two gaps are where a feed bill quietly grows, and we come back to both below.
Multiply it out. One hundred birds at 4.2 kilograms each is 420 kilograms of feed. Feed comes in 50-kilogram bags, so that works out to 8.4 bags on paper. Nobody sells you 0.4 of a bag, so you order nine, and the spare bag gives you some cover for the birds that will not make it to market.
The table puts the rest of the sum beside it. The cedi figures use the broad range for a 50-kilogram bag, which runs from about GH₵400 to GH₵470 depending on brand and season. Ask your feed seller for today's price before you budget. A bag bought in the middle of the rains and a bag bought in a dry spell do not always carry the same price, and a bag trucked in from another region carries its haulage with it.
| Line | How it is worked out | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Feed per bird to market | Planning figure | About 4.2 kg |
| Feed for 100 birds | 100 x 4.2 kg | 420 kg |
| Bags of 50 kg | 420 divided by 50 = 8.4 | 8.4, so order 9 |
| Feed cost for 8.4 bags | 8.4 x GH₵400 to GH₵470 | About GH₵3,360 to GH₵3,950 |
| Feed cost per bird placed | Feed cost divided by 100 | About GH₵34 to GH₵39 |
| Chicks, two boxes of 50 | From GH₵1,000 a box, Ross 308 or Cobb 500 | From GH₵2,000 |
Feed is the biggest line in that table. That matches the general pattern across Ghana, where feed is more than half of the cost of raising a broiler. It is also the line most farms find hardest to predict, because it moves with the maize and feed market, and you cannot control that from the farm.
The chick figure is a from-price. We confirm the price, the hatch date and the delivery cost with you before you pay, so the number in the table is a starting point for your budget and not a final quote.
The 420 kilograms assumes every bird you place reaches market. Losses are normal in any flock, so the honest plan allows for them.
A well-managed flock usually loses between 3 and 5 per cent of its birds over the grow-out. A poorly managed one can lose 10 to 20 per cent. Those are the ranges we work with when we talk to growers, and the gap between them is mostly management: water, temperature, litter, and how calmly the birds are handled.
Dead birds still ate before they died. The feed you put in does not shrink in step with the birds you lose. What changes is the cost per bird you actually sell. Start with 100, sell 95, and the same feed is spread over fewer birds. Work out your margin on the birds that reach the buyer, not on the birds you bought.
Spillage is the second leak. Feeders hung too high or too low, or too few feeder spaces for the number of birds in the house, push feed onto the litter. Birds scratch it, tread on it and waste it. Walk the house each morning and look at the feeder rims and the litter underneath them. You will see the waste long before it shows up as a short bag.
Price is where most budgets go wrong. A 50-kilogram bag broadly costs GH₵400 to GH₵470 right now, and that moves with the brand, the season and what maize is doing in the market. The bag price needs its own line in your plan, because it is the line that moves most.
Work the price per kilogram so you can compare brands fairly. At GH₵400 a bag you pay GH₵8 a kilogram. At GH₵470 you pay GH₵9.40. A bag that is cheaper per kilogram but leaves birds slow to grow has not saved you anything, because you carry the extra days in the house with the same rent, the same labour and the same water.
Do not switch brands on price alone. Run a simple test. Weigh a sample of birds at the same age each week on the new feed and on the old one, under the same house conditions. Our guide on measuring feed conversion on your own farm walks through how to keep that sheet.
Buying around the batch matters too. Order your first bags before the chicks arrive, so you are not paying a rushed price in the first week when a bag runs short. If the feed is coming from Accra, Kumasi or Tamale, add the haulage to the bag price before you compare it with a bag you can collect in Kasoa. The honest cost is the cost at your gate.
Most well-run houses do not feed broilers one product for six weeks. Farms usually move the birds through starter, grower and finisher feeds, each with its own protein and energy level. The change matters because the birds eat more as they get bigger, and each phase is a separate product with its own price.
Do not build a phase budget from memory. The exact protein and energy values sit on the bag label, and your feed supplier can confirm which product suits each stage. Our note on starter, grower and finisher feeding goes through the phases in more detail.
The planning total stays close to 4.2 kilograms per bird. What the phases change is the mix of bags in each week, and therefore your cash flow. A farm with the money for the first three weeks is in a far easier position than a farm that has to find cash for the finisher bags while the birds are already eating them.
Demand for broilers rises around Christmas, Easter and the Eid season, and many growers plan a batch to reach market in those weeks. That is sensible, but it means you count the feed backwards from the sale date, not forwards from the day the chicks land.
Take the sale week, subtract the six to seven weeks the flock needs, and you have the arrival week. Now check the bags. Do you have the money for the finisher feed in the final weeks, when the birds are eating the most? Is the store dry enough to hold that stock through the rains? If the answer to either is no, move the batch a week or start buying the feed earlier, rather than running short at the point where the flock is most expensive to keep.
Remember that the festive weeks are also the weeks when heat and dust can slow a flock. Allow a little room in the timing rather than planning to the day.
A feed plan is only as good as the record behind it. Write down the date each bag comes into the store, the date you open it, and how many birds you have in the house that day. At the end of the batch you will know your real kilograms per bird, and the next batch starts from your own number instead of ours.
Here is the sum you will want at the end of the batch. Take the bags you used, multiply by 50 kilograms, and divide by the birds you sold. Say you used nine bags for a flock that sold 95 birds. That is 450 kilograms divided by 95, which comes to about 4.7 kilograms per bird sold. That is a little more than the planning figure, and the gap is your losses and your spillage showing up in plain numbers. Write the answer in the book, and let it set the plan for the next batch.
Store bags off the floor and away from the wall, and keep the lids on the bins. Damp and weevils cut into a bag you have already paid for, and they do it quietly. The rainy months are the hardest for storage, so check the store after every heavy spell. Our guide to storing feed to stop spoilage covers the set-up in detail.
Record feed you move between houses, and any feed lost to rodents or spilt in the store. Rodents eat and foul feed, and that loss rarely shows up in the record unless you go looking for it. Keep the store closed and the bins tight, and the count stays honest.
You can, if you have the cash and a dry, closed store. Buying in bulk often lowers the price per bag, but only if the bags do not sit long enough to spoil. For 100 birds, nine bags is a manageable first order. Compare the bulk price with the weekly one before you commit.
Heat tends to slow a flock down, and intake usually drops in hot weather. Cooler weather tends to bring it back up. Keep 4.2 kilograms as the planning figure and let your own record show how your house behaves through the seasons.
Usually for one of three reasons: more losses than planned, spillage from feeders set at the wrong height, or too many birds crowded at one feeder. Check the losses first. If they are high, fix them, because feed is only part of the story.
It is the broad range for a 50-kilogram bag, depending on brand and season. Prices move, so confirm today's price with your feed seller before you budget. Our chick prices are also from-prices, confirmed with you before payment.
Plan the feed before the chicks arrive, then send the order form on the site or call 024 915 1503 to lock in the breed, the hatch date and the box count. We confirm the price, the hatch date and the delivery cost before any payment, and you can pay by cash, mobile money or bank transfer. For the rest of your numbers, read our guide to costing a broiler batch line by line. If you are still choosing between Ross 308 and Cobb 500, our broiler chicks page sets out the options, and the last week before selling helps you time the final feed.
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.
A weekly weighing routine for broiler farmers: how to pick an honest sample, the weights to compare against from day 7 to day 42, the average and uniformity sums, and what to do when the flock is behind.
Feed cost per kilo of broiler depends on how much feed each kilo takes and what you pay for it. These ten habits lower both without starving the birds or buying additives.
Heat kills the heaviest broilers in the last days before sale. This guide explains why, shows the signs in order, and sets out the house, stocking, water and feeding changes that prevent it, plus an afternoon emergency plan.
