On Mondays the market at Ejura fills with maize. The municipality is the largest maize producer in Ashanti Region and one of the busiest maize-trading areas in Ghana, and maize is the biggest single ingredient in a poultry ration. A farmer here starts with something that farmers in Accra and Kumasi pay lorry fares to get. The chicks have further to come: about 330 km from our hatchery at Opeikuma, Kasoa, through Kumasi and Mampong. This page deals with both halves, the grain first, because in Ejura the grain is where the money is made or lost.
Two maize harvests, two very different grains
Ejura sits in the transition belt between the forest and the savannah, and its rain comes in two seasons. The first runs from late March or early April to mid-July. A short dry spell follows until about mid-August. The second season covers September and October, and a long dry season lasts from November to March.
That pattern gives two maize crops a year. Major-season maize comes off the field around August and September, when the air is still humid and the second rains are close. Minor-season maize is harvested around December and January, into dry harmattan air. Researchers who sampled farm maize across Ghana's Middle Belt measured what that does to the grain:
| Major season | Minor season | |
|---|---|---|
| Harvest | about August to September | about December to January |
| Weather at harvest | humid, rain returning | dry, harmattan |
| Average grain moisture found | 20.4 per cent | 12.5 per cent |
| Average aflatoxin found | 29.1 parts per billion | 3.5 parts per billion |
Maize keeps safely at about 13 per cent moisture or below. Minor-season grain is often there already. Major-season grain usually is not, and maize bagged damp soon grows mould. Some of those moulds leave aflatoxin behind, a poison that slows growth, cuts egg numbers and damages the bird's liver. Drying the grain later does not take it out. The researchers' advice was simple: dry straight after harvest.
Buying and keeping maize for your birds
- Buy at harvest. Reports from Ejura market describe prices falling by more than half in a glut year, while farmers with no store had to sell at once. A poultry farmer with cash and a dry room is on the right side of that.
- Test before you pay for a big lot. A moisture meter is the proper tool. A common field check is to shake a handful of grain with dry salt in a dry glass jar: if the salt cakes or sticks to the glass after a few minutes, the grain is too wet to store.
- Dry major-season grain properly. Spread it thin on tarpaulins or a raised platform, not on bare earth or the roadside, turn it, and bring it in before the evening dew.
- Store it off the ground. Bag only grain that is cool and dry. Stack the bags on pallets, clear of the walls, under a roof that does not leak. Airtight storage bags keep weevils out without chemicals.
- Refuse bad grain at any price. Musty smell, grey or green patches and clumped kernels are reasons to walk away.
The municipal assembly lists warehouses at Ejura, Aframso, Sekyedumase and Kasei. Whether space in them can be hired is something to ask locally.
To size your store, here is an example sum, not a feeding plan. A laying hen eats roughly 110 to 120 grams of feed a day, and maize is usually half or more of a layer ration. On those figures 500 hens use 30 to 35 kg of maize a day, which is about a tonne a month and around twelve tonnes a year.
What Ejura maize does not give your birds
Maize supplies energy. The protein in the ration (soya bean meal, fish meal or a bought concentrate) and the vitamin and mineral premix still have to be bought. Many farmers with their own maize buy a concentrate and mix it at the rate the maker gives, which is safer than inventing a formula. Read buying and storing maize and soya, aflatoxin and mouldy feed and mixing your own poultry feed before you buy a mill. We also sell ready-made poultry feed. Its price is given when you ask, because it moves with ingredient costs and with the distance it has to travel.
Kasoa to Ejura: 330 km through Kumasi and Mampong
The route follows the Accra to Kumasi highway for about 260 km and then turns north through Mampong. Ejura is about 40 km beyond Mampong and a little under 100 km from Kumasi. By the shortest road the whole trip is roughly 325 km, and nearer 340 km through the centre of Kumasi. A bus or cargo vehicle needs about 7 to 8.5 hours when the load stays on one vehicle.
Be realistic about that last condition. Ejura is a market town, not a regional capital, and you should expect fewer vehicles to run straight to it from the south than run to Kumasi. Before dispatch we agree with you which station the boxes go to. Tell us on the form whether you could also collect at Mampong or in Kumasi. A second option makes it easier to match a vehicle to the hatch day, and it may shorten the time the chicks spend waiting between vehicles.
Eight hours is well inside what a day-old chick can stand, since its yolk reserve feeds it for roughly two to three days. Heat is the risk. The boxes should cover the long stretch to Kumasi in the evening or at night and reach you in the cool of the morning. Warm the brooder before you set out for the station, count the chicks there, and report any dead ones to us straight away. They are replaced free in the next hatch.
Collecting from Sekyedumase, Mampong, Atebubu and other towns
Sekyedumase, Anyinasu, Aframso and Kasei are in the same municipality and can collect at an Ejura station. Mampong is on the route itself, about 40 km before Ejura, so a farmer there should ask for the boxes at Mampong or Kumasi and save the chicks the extra road. Atebubu, further north on the road to Yeji, and Nkoranza to the north-west are both in Bono East. For those towns we agree the nearest workable station with you before dispatch, and our Kumasi and Techiman pages may describe a collection point that suits you better.
Humid in June, dry and dusty by February
Records for the municipality show relative humidity of about 90 per cent in June and about 55 per cent in February. Monthly average temperatures run between 21°C and 30°C, with January to April the hottest months and July and August the coolest. An Ejura farmer therefore meets, in one year, the problem of the forest and the problem of the north.
In the two rainy seasons the fight is against wet litter, the same as in Kumasi. In the dry season it is the opposite. Harmattan nights are cold enough to chill young chicks, the afternoons are hot, and the wind carries dust into an open-sided house. Chicks placed from December to February need more heat at night than at any other time of year and more air by midday. Broilers that finish between February and April meet the hottest afternoons at their heaviest weight, so give them extra drinkers and feed them in the cool hours. Our article on brooding in the rainy season and the harmattan covers both cases, and the chick brooding guide has the temperatures.
What sells in a Monday market town
Three weekly markets serve the municipality: Ejura on Mondays, Anyinasu on Tuesdays and Sekyedumase on Thursdays. What follows is our reasoning about which birds fit a town like this, not a survey of Ejura buyers.
- Sasso, Kuroiler and Noiler (Sasso from GH₵ 13, the other two from GH₵ 11) are coloured, hardy birds that sell live much as a local fowl does, only heavier. They tolerate simpler housing, which suits a household already busy with a maize farm. See Sasso, Kuroiler and Noiler chicks.
- White cockerels (from GH₵ 3) are the cheapest way to fill a pen for Christmas and the Eid festivals. They take months, not weeks, so they reward cheap grain and patience.
- Broilers (from GH₵ 20) eat the most feed in the shortest time, so cheap maize helps them most. Fix the buyer first. A finished broiler costs money every extra day it waits.
- Layers (from GH₵ 23) turn maize into eggs for well over a year, and eggs keep long enough to be sold in Mampong or Kumasi as well as at home.
- Guinea keets (from GH₵ 17) are worth a thought in a town that faces the savannah, where guinea fowl is well liked.
These starting prices were checked on 2 October 2026 and they change. The price list has the current figures.
Three details that make an Ejura order quick
We need the bird and the number of boxes, the week you want the chicks, and which of Ejura, Mampong and Kumasi you can reach for collection. Put them in the form on this page. One box of 50 is the smallest order. No payment is taken on the website. Our reply states the hatch date, the chick price and the transport cost, and only when you accept those do you pay, by mobile money, bank transfer or cash. If you would sooner talk it over, the number is 024 915 1503 and the email is support@halaalfarmsghana.com.
Questions from Ejura
Is there a straight road for chicks from Kasoa to Ejura, and how long is it?
The road runs through Kumasi and Mampong, roughly 325 to 340 km in all depending on the route, with Ejura about 40 km beyond Mampong. On one vehicle the trip takes about 7 to 8.5 hours, and longer if the boxes change vehicle in Kumasi. A chick's yolk reserve lasts two to three days, so the birds cope if they travel in the cool.
Can I feed Ejura maize to my chickens straight from the farm?
Only if it is dry and clean. Maize stores safely at about 13 per cent moisture or less. Grain from the major season is usually harvested much wetter than that and goes mouldy in the bag unless it is dried first. Mouldy maize can carry aflatoxin, which harms birds and cannot be removed by drying afterwards.
Can I collect my chicks at Mampong or Kumasi instead of Ejura?
Yes, if that suits you. The station is agreed with you before dispatch, and the vehicle passes Kumasi and Mampong on the way north. Tell us on the order form which of the three you can reach. Giving a second choice makes it easier to match a vehicle to the hatch day.
Which chicks suit a farmer who already grows maize around Ejura?
Birds that eat a lot of feed gain most from cheap home-grown maize, which points to layers and broilers. Broilers need a buyer fixed in advance, and layers need proper housing. If you sell live birds on market days, Sasso, Kuroiler, Noiler and white cockerels are easier to manage. Maize still has to be balanced with a protein source.