A pullet that is too light, too fat or built wrong for her breed will lay late and poorly. Here is how to check her before the first egg.
Halaal Farms Ghana team27 September 2026 · 11 min read
Most growers weigh a pullet once, when they collect her, and then forget about her until the first egg is late. By then the weeks that decided her frame are already behind her. A bird that is too light, too fat or built the wrong way for her breed will lay late and lay poorly, and there is very little that can be done about her build at point of lay.
This guide covers the checks you can do yourself with a scale, a pair of hands and a notebook, in the weeks before the first egg. It does not replace a breed guide or a vet. It is meant to make you look at the right things, at the right time.
Weight and frame get mixed up all the time. Frame is the size and build of the skeleton: how long the breastbone is, how wide the pelvis opens, how deep the body sits. Weight is what the bird carries on that frame, which is muscle, fat and the contents of the gut. A small-framed bird can be heavy and still be fat. A large-framed bird can look thin in a crowded house and still be perfectly sound.
The breed sets the frame. A brown layer, a white layer and a dual-purpose bird are not built to the same plan, and their weights at point of lay are not the same either. That is why a weight chart from one breed is no use for another. Get the chart from your supplier or the breed's own guide, and use that. A chart copied from a neighbour's flock only tells you about the neighbour's flock.
In practice, a pullet heading for lay needs to be heavy enough to carry the eggs she is about to make, and light enough that fat is not crowding her passage. The gap between those two is narrow, and it is where most of the trouble lives.
Weigh the pullets the same way every time. Use the same scale, weigh at the same time of day, and do not compare a bird weighed after the morning feed with one weighed before it. Pick your sample from across the house rather than only the biggest and smallest birds. Catch them at random as they come out of the pen, not by pulling out the ones that look wrong to you.
Write the weights in the same notebook each week, with the date. A single number tells you little. The direction tells you a lot. A flock that slips below its chart for two weeks running needs its feed and space looked at. A flock that climbs faster than its chart needs the feed plan checked before the birds get fat.
A scale tells you how heavy a bird is. Your hands tell you what she is carrying. Pick the bird up gently, support her body, and check these points in order:
| Check | What good looks like | What a problem looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Weight against the breed chart | Inside the band on the chart and rising week on week | Flat or falling for two weeks, or rising well past the chart |
| Keel | Clear keel with some meat on either side | Sharp keel with little meat, or a keel lost under fat |
| Pelvic bones | Flexible, with room between them | Hard and close, or padded all round with fat |
| Comb and wattles | Growing, reddening and getting waxy | Small and pale, and not changing for weeks |
| Droppings and appetite | Regular droppings and a steady appetite | Loose droppings, or pecking at feed without eating much |
Being off the chart is usually a feeding or housing problem rather than bad luck. The same causes come up again and again:
Harmattan adds its own pattern. On cold, dusty mornings birds can eat more to keep warm, and if the ration is rich that extra energy can settle as fat. Check the pullets in the cold months as carefully as you check them in the rains, and do not assume a bird that looks well covered is doing well.
Grower and layer feeds do different jobs. The grower ration builds the frame. The layer ration is for laying, with the calcium the eggs need. Switching too early fattens a bird before she has the frame to lay. Switching too late leaves her without the feed she needs when laying starts. Confirm the switch point with your feed supplier or the breed guide. Do not switch just because the birds look big, and do not stretch the grower bag past its time because it seems cheaper week to week.
Money matters here. Feed is more than half of what a flock costs, so a pullet fed past her need is an expensive mistake. A 50 kg bag of feed is broadly GH₵400 to GH₵470, depending on brand and season, so confirm today's price before you buy in bulk. Overfeeding a whole house for a month adds up quickly, even though no single bird looks wrong.
Some growers buy point-of-lay pullets rather than rear them. The price is higher, and the risk is that the frame is wrong and you only find out when the eggs are late. Point-of-lay pullets are quoted in the range of GH₵1,000 to GH₵1,150, so it is worth checking before you commit.
Ask for the weight record the pullets were kept on, and ask what they were fed, when the feed was switched and what vaccines they had. When she arrives, check the keel and the pelvic bones yourself, using the points above. A bird that was built right and fed right should show both. If something does not match what you were told, raise it before the pullets go in the house with the rest of your flock.
Confirm today's price and exactly what it includes before you pay anything. The farm will go through it with you first.
The frame is set in the grower house, but it is protected or spoiled there too. Give the pullets enough floor space that every bird can reach the feeder and the drinker without a shove. Where the house is too full, the weaker birds spend the day standing back and eating less, and they show it on the scale a week or two later.
Sort the flock when it is small enough to do easily. Move the clearly smaller birds to a separate pen, feed them from their own tray, and watch them for the next few weeks. Many growers skip this because it feels like extra work. It is the cheapest fix there is, and it is what keeps a flock even on the chart.
Keep the house quiet and the routine steady. Changes in feed time, lights and handlers all show up in the weights. Write the change down in your notebook when you make it, so when a bird is off the chart you can tell which change came first.
When one bird is off the chart, do not treat her straight away. Pick her up, run the keel and pelvis checks again, and look at her droppings and her crop. Then look at the pen she lives in. If she is the only bird off the chart, the cause is usually her own: a pecking order that keeps her from the feeder, a bad foot, or a gut problem that needs a vet. If half the pen is off the chart, the cause is almost always the house, the feed or the water, and that is what you fix first.
Weekly is a good habit through the growing stage. Weigh on the same day, at the same time of day, on the same scale, and record the numbers beside the date.
Sometimes, if the cause is fixed early. Feed, space and worms are the usual culprits. A bird that has been light for several weeks often starts laying late, so bring the vet in if she is not growing.
Not necessarily, but an over-conditioned pullet is more likely to lay poorly and to strain. Cut back on the rich feed, watch her for a week, and check her against the breed chart again.
No. A reliable hanging or kitchen scale that reads small weights clearly is enough. Use the same one every week, and check it against a known weight now and then.
The weeks before lay are when a pullet's frame is finally set, so the time to plan them is before the first egg, not after it. If you are starting a layer flock, send the order form on our site or call 024 915 1503. An order starts with a message, not with money. We confirm the price, the hatch date and the delivery cost with you before any payment, and the minimum order is one box of 50 chicks.
For the feeding side of this, read Feeding Layers From Chick to First Egg. For the problems that follow a bird who was built or fed wrongly, see Prolapse and Internal Laying: Spotting Trouble Early. Current chick prices are on the price page, and the steps to order are on how to order.
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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