A few minutes a day with a notebook turns vague losses into one honest number, and that number decides your costs, your sales and your next batch.
Halaal Farms Ghana team7 June 2026 · 10 min read
Ask ten keepers how many birds they lost last cycle and you will get ten guesses, most of them too low. People remember the bad week and forget the small losses that added up quietly over six weeks. A notebook with one column of numbers fixes that, and it costs nothing but a few minutes a day.
This guide is about that notebook. It covers what to write down, how to turn it into a single percentage, what the percentage tells you and how to use the record when money is on the line, whether that is your own cash flow or a conversation with a buyer.
Mortality is the share of birds you have lost since the flock arrived. The sum is simple. Divide the total number of birds that have died by the number of birds you started with, then multiply by 100. If you placed 500 chicks and 20 have died, your mortality is 20 divided by 500, which is 4 percent.
That figure only means something when you compare it with a benchmark. A well-managed flock usually runs at 3 to 5 percent losses across the cycle. A poorly managed one can run at 10 to 20 percent. If you are sitting at 4 percent, you are doing reasonably well. If you are heading for 12 percent, something on the farm needs attention, and the record will tell you where to look.
Keep the counting honest. Chicks that die on arrival should be counted in your record, even though we replace them free in the next hatch. The replacement is a supplier matter. The death still happened to your flock, and your record should say so.
Use the same method every cycle. If one cycle counts against the birds placed and the next counts against the birds alive on day 7, the two percentages cannot be compared, and you will end up chasing a problem that only exists in the arithmetic.
You do not need software to start. A ruled notebook or a simple spreadsheet is enough. Use one row for each day, and do not skip the days when nothing happened, because a row with a zero is still information.
The last two columns matter most. A death without a note is a number. A death with a note about a power cut, a new feed bag or a cold night is a clue, and clues are how you get better next time.
When you plot your daily deaths over the cycle, a pattern usually appears. Most flocks show a small cluster at arrival, a quiet middle, and then a rise near the end, as the birds get heavier and any weakness shows. The shape is normal. What matters is whether the rise is gradual or sudden, and whether it lines up with something you did or something that happened to the farm.
Sudden jumps are the ones to chase. A spike on the same day as a power cut points to the brooder or the ventilation. A spike a few days after a feed change points to the feed. A spike that follows a vaccination day is worth a call to the vet and a note in the record. Each of those spikes becomes easier to spot when you have a row of notes next to the number.
Below is an illustrative record for a flock of 500 chicks. The figures are an example to show how the columns fit together. They are not from a real farm, and your own numbers will look different.
| Day | Deaths that day | Total deaths | Mortality so far | What we noted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (arrival) | 2 | 2 | 0.4% | Dead on arrival, box and count recorded for the replacement |
| 7 | 3 | 5 | 1.0% | Normal, brooder checked each morning |
| 14 | 4 | 9 | 1.8% | Power cut for about six hours overnight |
| 21 | 11 | 20 | 4.0% | Several birds lame, vet called, litter turned and dried |
| 28 | 5 | 25 | 5.0% | Feed batch changed on day 24, watched closely |
| 35 | 4 | 29 | 5.8% | Above the 3 to 5 percent band, reviewing feed, water and stocking |
Read that table again with the notes in mind. The day 21 spike is what tells you to look at the litter and the lame birds, not just the feed. The day 35 figure says the flock has crossed the top of the well-managed band, so the next cycle needs a closer look at the same things before the chicks arrive.
A death is not only a bird. It is the chick price you paid, the feed the bird ate before it died and the labour and water you spent on it. For a quick estimate, multiply the extra deaths by the chick price. The broiler price on our current list starts from GH₵20 each, so 55 extra deaths is a little over GH₵1,000 before feed. That is an illustrative estimate, so confirm today's price with us before you use it in a budget.
The feed side is larger than most people expect. Feed is more than half of production cost, and a 50 kg bag broadly sells for GH₵400 to 470 depending on brand and season. A bird that dies in week five has already eaten a good part of the feed it was going to eat. The record helps you see that cost rather than just feel it.
Put the figure next to your sales. If a flock is at 12 percent losses and you were planning on selling a set number of birds, the sale will be smaller than the plan. Knowing that early is much better than finding out at the market.
A buyer who wants a steady supply will ask how many birds you can deliver on a given date. Your record is the honest answer. If your mortality has been running at 4 percent, you can plan a delivery around that. If it has been running higher, you can say so, and plan the delivery with a margin rather than promising the full number and falling short.
Show the record when you talk about price, too. A buyer who sees a clean, consistent flock is more willing to pay for it. A buyer who hears "we had a few losses" with nothing to back it up is likely to bargain harder.
The record also helps with decisions on your own farm. Whether to vaccinate on a particular date, whether to restock a pen, whether to change feed suppliers or to keep a batch longer: each of those questions gets easier to answer when the numbers are written down rather than remembered.
Chicks that die on the way are the easiest losses to lose track of, because they happen before the flock is in the house. Write down the box, the number of dead chicks in it, the date and the time you found them. Keep the box label if you have it.
Tell the farm straight away so the replacement can go into the next hatch. A replacement covers chicks that did not survive the trip. It does not cover losses that come later from disease or management on your farm, and your record is what lets you tell those two kinds of loss apart.
Pick a notebook or a spreadsheet and set up the columns before the chicks arrive. Write the flock size at the top, the date it came in and the house or pen it is in. Then go to the house each morning, count the deaths, write the running totals and write one line about the day.
Keep a copy, too. A notebook can get wet in a rainstorm, left in a vehicle or borrowed and never returned. At the end of each week, photograph the pages or copy the weekly totals into your phone. Losing a cycle's record means losing the only evidence you have about what went wrong, and rebuilding it from memory is almost impossible.
At the end of each week, look at the total and the curve. At the end of each cycle, write a short summary: final mortality, the biggest spike, what caused it if you know, and what you will do differently. That summary is the most useful page you will write all year.
If you already keep farm records, add these columns to them rather than starting a second book. Our guides on simple farm records and on record keeping with a notebook show how to combine the two without the paperwork getting out of hand.
Count them separately, and write the reason beside them. A culled bird is still a loss to the flock, and your mortality figure should reflect that. Keeping culls in their own column lets you see how many were removed for welfare reasons and how many died without help.
Look at the curve first. Find the day or days with the biggest jump, and read the notes for those days. Then ask the vet to look at the flock with you, and check the feed, water, ventilation and stocking density. One high number on its own is a warning, and the record tells you where to start.
It should. Count them in your record so the total reflects the flock you actually received. The supplier replacement is handled separately, and the record should say that a replacement was made.
Yes. A notebook you use every day is better than a spreadsheet you open once a week. Many farms keep both, with the notebook as the daily record and the spreadsheet for the weekly totals and the end-of-cycle summary.
To set your next cycle up well, read simple farm records that pay and the record of treatments and withdrawals, because the mortality record works best alongside them. For the first days after arrival, see feeding day-old chicks in the first 24 hours. When you are ready to order, read how to order day-old chicks, then send the order form on this page or call 024 915 1503, and we will confirm the price, hatch date and delivery cost before you pay anything.
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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