Work out the best day to sell your broilers by comparing daily feed cost with daily weight gain, how your buyer pays, bird size and the cost of holding on.
Halaal Farms Ghana team4 October 2026 · 14 min read
A flock of 500 broilers in its sixth week eats 80 to 90 kg of feed a day, getting on for two 50 kg bags. Every morning you keep those birds, you buy those bags again and bet that the weight they add, and the price you finally get, will pay you back. Sometimes the bet is good. After a certain day it is not, and many farmers do not see it, because the loss arrives quietly in the feed store instead of showing on a sales receipt.
There is no fixed correct age for selling. Six weeks is a habit, not a rule. Your most profitable day depends on four things you can measure on your own farm: how much the birds gain each day, how much they eat each day, how your buyer pays (per kilo, per bird or dressed), and the size that buyer wants. Every cedi figure below is an example to show the method, so replace it with what you actually pay and receive.
By week five most of your money is already spent. The chicks, the brooding charcoal or gas, the starter feed and the vaccines are gone whether you sell today or next week. They should not influence the sale date. The only question that matters now is forward-looking: will one more day in the house add more money than it takes out.
The money one more day adds is the weight gained that day multiplied by the price you are paid for weight. The money it takes out is the feed eaten that day, a day's share of labour, water and litter, and the value of any birds that die before the sale.
Take an example. Suppose finisher feed costs GH₵ 400 for a 50 kg bag, which is GH₵ 8 a kilo, and a buyer pays GH₵ 40 for each kilo of live weight. On day 40 a bird eats about 170 g of feed and gains about 70 g. The feed costs GH₵ 1.36 and the gain is worth GH₵ 2.80, so the bird has earned you GH₵ 1.44 that day before other costs. Two weeks later it eats about 190 g and gains about 50 g. The feed now costs GH₵ 1.52 and the gain is worth GH₵ 2.00. The day's surplus has fallen to 48 pesewas, and that is before a single death or a day's wages is counted.
The bird did not start losing money on feed alone. The surplus shrank to the point where one hot afternoon, one dead bird in a hundred or a small drop in price wipes it out. Finding your best day means spotting when that surplus has become too thin to be worth the risk.
A broiler uses feed for two jobs. The first is maintenance: keeping warm or cool, moving, breathing, replacing tissue. The second is growth. A 2.5 kg bird has far more body to maintain than a 1 kg bird, so a larger share of every mouthful goes to staying alive and a smaller share becomes meat. Older birds also lay down more fat, which takes more feed energy to make than lean muscle.
Heat makes it worse in Ghana. A heavy bird in an open-sided house in March pants through the afternoon, eats less and spends energy getting rid of heat. Growth slows more than intake does, so the feed needed for each kilo of gain climbs faster than breeder charts suggest.
The table shows an illustrative flock, a little behind breed targets as many open-house flocks are. The right-hand column is the one to watch. It is the feed used for each kilo gained in that week alone, not the average for the whole batch.
| Week | Weight at end of week | Gain in the week | Feed eaten in the week | Feed for each kilo gained that week | Batch average (FCR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1.20 kg | 0.45 kg | 0.80 kg | 1.8 kg | 1.58 |
| 5 | 1.70 kg | 0.50 kg | 1.00 kg | 2.0 kg | 1.71 |
| 6 | 2.20 kg | 0.50 kg | 1.15 kg | 2.3 kg | 1.84 |
| 7 | 2.65 kg | 0.45 kg | 1.25 kg | 2.8 kg | 2.00 |
| 8 | 3.00 kg | 0.35 kg | 1.30 kg | 3.7 kg | 2.20 |
The batch average hides the problem. An FCR that moves from 1.84 to 2.00 looks like a small slip, yet the gain in week seven took 2.8 kg of feed per kilo and week eight took 3.7 kg. For the batch figure itself, our article on feed conversion ratio with worked examples goes through the sum.
There is a simple break-even test. Divide the price you get for a kilo of live weight by the price you pay for a kilo of feed. In the example, GH₵ 40 divided by GH₵ 8 is 5. While the feed needed for a kilo of gain stays well under that number, feed alone is still paying its way. As the weekly figure climbs towards it, you are working for nothing.
The sum above assumes every extra gram earns money. In many Ghanaian markets it does not.
Here extra weight is always paid for, so holding longer can still add to the margin on each bird for a while. Watch for two things. Some buyers quote a lower price per kilo for very heavy birds, because their own customers do not want them. And the scale is the buyer's, at the buyer's place, after a journey. Birds lose weight once feed is withdrawn and they are crated, so agree where and when the weighing happens before you load.
This is the common arrangement at live bird markets, with chop bars and with many household buyers. The buyer looks at the bird, perhaps lifts it, and pays a price for "medium" or "big". The price moves in steps, not gram by gram.
Suppose a buyer pays GH₵ 85 for birds of about 2 kg and GH₵ 95 for birds of about 2.5 kg. In the example flock, moving from 2.2 kg to 2.65 kg takes the whole of week seven and 1.25 kg of feed, which at GH₵ 8 a kilo is GH₵ 10. The buyer pays GH₵ 10 more. You have fed and guarded the flock for a week, carried the risk of deaths, and earned nothing extra. With per-bird pricing the rule is blunt: sell as soon as the flock is comfortably in the size class that earns the price.
Cold stores, supermarkets, hotels and some caterers buy dressed birds by the kilo or by carcass size. A dressed carcass is usually around 70 to 75 per cent of live weight, so a 2.2 kg live bird gives roughly 1.5 to 1.65 kg dressed. These buyers often specify a carcass weight range and discount birds outside it, so your sale day is the day most of the flock falls inside that range. If you plan to dress birds yourself, settle your processing routine and cold storage before you promise anyone a delivery.
Know the size your outlet wants before the chicks arrive, not when the birds are already 2.5 kg.
Ask each buyer three questions: what live weight do you want, do you pay per bird or per kilo, and what do you do with birds that are over or under. The answers give you a target weight. Finding and keeping those buyers is covered in finding buyers for broilers and eggs in Ghana.
Late deaths. A bird that dies at day 45 has eaten its whole share of feed and brought in nothing. Heavy, fast-growing broilers are the ones most likely to die suddenly, go off their legs or collapse on a hot afternoon. If one bird in a hundred dies in an extra week and a finished bird is worth GH₵ 90, that week has cost about 90 pesewas for every bird in the house, on top of the feed.
Crowding. The floor does not grow with the birds. A house stocked at 10 birds per square metre carries 22 kg of live weight on each square metre when the birds weigh 2.2 kg, and 30 kg when they reach 3 kg. In an open-sided house in hot weather that extra load means more body heat, wetter litter, more ammonia and more competition at feeders and drinkers.
Carcass quality. Heavy birds sit more, and on damp, caked litter they develop breast blisters and burnt hocks that buyers of dressed birds mark down.
Running costs and idle cash. Wages, water and fuel continue every day, and the money locked in the flock cannot buy the next chicks or repay a lender.
The next batch. A week added to this batch is a week taken from the next one. This is the cost farmers overlook most.
If you grow one or two batches a year for Christmas and Easter, your house stands empty much of the time and an extra week costs you only what the birds eat and the risks they carry. If you run batches back to back, the house itself is earning money, and what counts is margin for each day of the full cycle, including the cleaning and resting time between flocks.
Here is the example flock again, sold per kilo at GH₵ 40, with chicks at GH₵ 20 each, feed at GH₵ 8 a kilo, an allowance for other costs and one bird in a hundred lost in each extra week. Two weeks are allowed between batches for cleaning and rest.
| Sold at end of | Sale value per bird | Cost per bird | Margin per bird | Days in cycle | Margin per bird for each day of the cycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 6 | GH₵ 88 | GH₵ 62.40 | GH₵ 25.60 | 56 | 46 pesewas |
| Week 7 | GH₵ 106 | GH₵ 74.40 | GH₵ 31.60 | 63 | 50 pesewas |
| Week 8 | GH₵ 120 | GH₵ 86.80 | GH₵ 33.20 | 70 | 47 pesewas |
These are not forecasts. Counted per batch, week eight looks best, because GH₵ 33.20 is the biggest number. Counted per day of the cycle, which is what decides your income over a year, week seven wins and week eight is back down near week six. Now change one assumption. If the buyer pays per bird and not per kilo, or drops the price for birds over 2.5 kg, or the weather is hot and week-seven growth is poor, the best day moves back to week six or earlier.
Put your own figures through the poultry profit calculator for two or three different sale ages and compare the result per day as well as per batch. Planning how batches follow one another through the year is covered in all-in, all-out broiler production.
The birds are ready. A buyer offers GH₵ 85. You have heard that someone got GH₵ 95 last month, or that prices rise towards the end of the month, so you decide to hold for a week. It feels like prudence and is often the most expensive decision of the batch.
Work out what the wait costs before you take it. For 500 birds in week seven of the example:
The week costs GH₵ 5,725, or about GH₵ 11.50 for every bird you will sell. If you are paid per bird, the price must rise from GH₵ 85 to more than GH₵ 96 just to leave you where you were. A rise of that size inside one week is rare outside the days before a festival. If the price stays the same you are GH₵ 5,725 poorer. If it falls, which happens when several farms nearby hold back and then release birds together, you lose twice.
The trap tightens the longer you stay in it. Each week the birds eat more, grow less and move further from the size ordinary buyers want, and buyers who can see an overgrown flock offer less, not more.
A rule for holding: wait only when you have a named buyer, an agreed price and an agreed collection date, and the extra money is more than the cost of the wait worked out as above. A hope that prices will improve is not a reason. A confirmed order for the Friday before Christmas is.
The real protection is to fix the sale before you buy the chicks. Decide the date and the size, count back the growing days, and order the hatch that fits. At Halaal Farms we confirm the hatch date before you pay, so you can line it up with your buyer's date. Our article on when to order chicks for Christmas, Easter and Eid shows the back-planning for each festival, and you can book Ross 308 or Cobb 500 broiler chicks for a specific week through the order form.
You need a hanging scale, a notebook and ten minutes twice a week.
The half and two-thirds marks in step five are working guides, not science. They leave room for the costs feed does not show: deaths, labour and the delayed next batch.
If no records were kept, these signs tell you the flock should have gone:
If two or three of these are true, sell at the price you can get this week. A smaller certain margin today is nearly always worth more than a larger hoped-for one after another ten bags of feed.
If you would like help setting a sale date and working back to a hatch, Halaal Farms gives free advice before and after an order. Call 024 915 1503 or send the order form with your target date and bird size, and check the current day-old chick price list so that your sum starts with the right chick cost.
Most commercial broilers are sold between five and eight weeks, with six to seven weeks the commonest. Age is a poor guide on its own. A well-brooded flock on good feed can reach a buyer's size at five and a half weeks, while a flock that had a hard start may need seven. Decide on weight, buyer demand and daily feed cost, and treat age only as a rough marker.
It can be if you are paid per kilo at a steady price, your deaths stay low and the house would stand empty anyway. It usually is not if you are paid per bird, if the weather is hot, or if the next batch is waiting. By week eight a broiler may need well over three kilos of feed for each kilo it gains, so check the sum with your own figures first.
Weigh a sample. Pen off birds in at least three places in the house, weigh every bird you have caught without picking the big ones, and divide the total by the number weighed. Fifty birds, or about two per cent of a large flock, gives a usable average. Do it at the same time of day each time, so that full and empty crops do not confuse the comparison.
One clean sale is simplest and safest for disease control, because the house empties and can be cleaned. Selling the heaviest birds first can help when the house is crowded or buyers want different sizes, but every catching team and crate that comes in can bring infection, and feed must be withdrawn carefully. If you sell in stages, finish within a week or so.
Birds stop eating once feed is withdrawn or they are crated, but they keep passing droppings and losing moisture, so some live weight goes in a few hours. Heat, long journeys and rough catching make it worse. Agree with the buyer in advance where and when the birds will be weighed, and load in the cool of early morning or evening where you can.
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.
How to turn live broilers into clean, well-chilled dressed chicken on a small farm, from the last feed to the freezer, with the temperatures, timings and hygiene habits that keep the meat safe and saleable.
How to run broilers as single-age batches: what the empty days between flocks achieve, the arithmetic of cycles per year, timing batches for festive demand and rotating several houses without mixing ages.
A working calendar for one broiler batch. For each week it lists the temperature, feed, space, checks and jobs that fall due, from the day before the chicks arrive to the morning the birds are loaded.
